I thought Jay went too easy on it. Every scene was structured so it felt like the first scene of the movie, as a teaser where the monster is slowly built up and then revealed, before switching scenes to another build up. It was two hours of build up with no real monster battle for a pay off. Didn’t love it.

Striker, Ted

“Kick Ass, and his family we don’t care about” featuring a cameo by Godzilla

Otto Torrens

I HATED Monsters but thought Godzilla was fine.

Striker, Ted

I’m not gonna send you a pizza roll

Mr.Ninja

i want 10 hours loop of rich watching taebo

Uncle Sporkums

Doesn’t look like I’d enjoy it at all. I’ve seen clips from too many dumb action movies to be entertained or impressed by Godzilla. I’m also the only one who didn’t like what I saw of Cranston’s acting, it felt like something out of a beginners workshop. And the scene where he’s running totally reminded me of polio girl from Taken..

El_Runko

I liked Monsters in theory. Good premise, good idea, movie looked good at all, but fuck those actors. Don’t think I’ve ever seen two actors (who are married in real life, nonetheless) have so little chemistry.

Anyone who says there should have been more fighting needs to go watch Transformers or something instead. Or grow up. Patience, a good build-up, and a huge payoff make for a much more rewarding film experience. Saying Godzilla was “boring” because there wasn’t enough monster fighting would be the same thing as saying Jaws and Alien are boring because don’t see enough of the shark/alien in them. And I don’t think there are many people in the world who will say that Jaws and Alien are bad films. In Alien, the xenomorph is on screen for around four minutes, total, in a film that has a running time of 117 minutes. Is Alien boring?

I don’t understand people. We claim we want more carefully constructed films that aren’t mindless Michael Bay-style trash and then bash movies like Godzilla for not being a non-stop, no holds barred action movie. Godzilla was fine as far as summer blockbusters go and I smell an Oscar nomination for Visual Effects in this film’s future. Great stuff here.

Honestly, I don’t know what else to say. My only suggestion is to wait a few weeks because Transformers 4 is on the way and sounds like it’s exactly the type of film that will be loved by people that thought Godzilla was too boring

ident

Way to watch the first five minutes of the review and freak the fuck out.

Anthony D.

Wasn’t talking about the RLM guys, I was talking about people who have been saying it all week on the internet. I’ll edit the opening of my post to make that more clear.

http://www.scream-movie.net/ Charles Petrosky

It’s popular to hate on the 1998 Godzilla film but I genuinely like it. Probably just my nostalgia wrapped up in it (I was 12 when the film released) but I think it’s a fun film. It’s got the dumb characters, overload of CGI, and weak plot of all the summer blockbusters we continue to get to this day, but for whatever reason I enjoy this one more. Maybe because it was new and exciting in 1998? And now we’re bored and jaded?

Cameron Wade

Waiting and building to a payoff is great but if the stuff that builds to that payoff is boring than its worthless. The stuff before the shark and alien in Jaws and Alien is interesting by itself as well as being the buildup to the thing we all came to see. If it wasn’t interesting than those movies wouldn’t be nearly as good.

http://www.scream-movie.net/ Charles Petrosky

Have you seen Tremors? It’s a monster movie done right!

FirestarTom

117 minutes of contrived story, forced character interaction, forced character involvement where they shouldn’t be. Stupid science, dumb history. This was just as stupid as the racist robots in Transformers.

http://soawkwardshow.tumblr.com so awkward

My complaint isn’t that the film took its timing to build up tension, but that it was a built up with no pay off. The “finale” was shorter than most of the build up scenes. There was no big finale.

Ledechev

I put pizza rolls in my VCR so I can watch ‘m on TV but it didn’t work.

Best intro so far.

Uncle Sporkums

I was thinking the same thing!!

Gerhard Van der Berg

I wanted either more interesting characters than Kickass to be central to the plot, or more action. It may have been interesting to Jay, but unless a story is told through news reports, don’t cut away from action to show a news report, unless the person giving the report is an interesting character.

pdexter

I was so going to write that New York was not even close being the most populos city.
You damn frauds.

Daniel

Just remembered how lame Godzilla (98) was, new Godzilla was okay, the visuals were pretty amazing, they got Godzilla right and everything. It was shot well and well made in a technical sense but the characters were fucking awful. Bryan Cranston was good for sure, but everyone else was god awful, the character writing was non existent.

Now X-Men Days of Future Past, that’s a summer movie, review that on Half in the Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

Ledechev

Rumour has it Peter Mayhew was inside the Godzilla suit for this movie. You know, for the fans. What?

TJ

“Let’s take this Godzilla fight out of Metropolis”

Anthony D.

Or you can cut away if you’re trying to build anticipation and not shoot your film’s proverbial load too soon. Just a thought.

http://www.scream-movie.net/ Charles Petrosky

New York is one of the most recognizable cities though. Show a picture of Shanghai to the average person and I don’t think they’ll be able to guess where it is.

Otto Torrens

If you rewatch that scene, pay close attention and you’ll see that the ENTIRE fight scene is what they showed on the TV.

The MUTO doesn’t stick around to get a beat down it just hops away and then takes off.

I think that Godzilla(2014) was mostly boring, but not because there wasnt enough fights and monsters destrying stuff, but because it was the only thing the movie had to offer. I dont think it was a bad movie, but if you would cut the running time to to about one hour nothing would change really. They were teasing the monstrers for the first 2/3 of the movie, and thats fine with me, but i need something else to care about to keep my interest. When they got to the final fight i was so uninterested in the movie i wasnt even that impressed with the great visuals.

Otto Torrens

I can’t ever seem to finish that film, I start from the beginning when ever I’m going to watch something but after an hour I just can’t stand Monsters anymore, nothing happens, the two characters are bland and I couldn’t care less about them.

Striker, Ted

Kick Ass is just a void of charisma though, you need someone who can carry the weight of that exposition and it just ain’t him, it would have been better served following Brian Cranston’s story line to a logical conclusion.

El_Runko

Like I said, the fault of Monsters in entirely in the casting. In such a slow, character-driven movie you need actors who are actually interesting and talented to keep the viewer invested. Not two vapid douchebags with one facial expression each.

HeliopanND09

What the hell ever happened to Maria Pitillo? Did Godzilla set back her career?

ohseanofnoise

FYI, Jurassic Park was 1993.

Edit: I sound like an asshole.

Otto Torrens

Tremors is the exception to the every character as comedy relief rule~

John Luck Pickerd

“Oh! Oh you gotta be kidding me man, we’re in his mouth! We’re IN HIS MOUTH!”

Anthony D.

But Aaron Taylor-Johnson wasn’t involved in any of the exposition. He was literally there just to react to the destruction and do military things. The exposition was handled by Cranston and Watanabe, who were more than capable of doing so. Sure ATJ wasn’t great in the film but it was still not enough to ruin it.

Otto Torrens

Yeah ATJ is super boring in the film, but at least you have a few interesting supporting characters.

HeliopanND09

It could have been worse… it could have been Tobey Maguire I suppose.

El_Runko

Cause it’s a comedy. It makes sense. In Godzilla, it doesn’t. It’s like Jurassic Park/Independence Day with every character played by Jeff Goldblum.

And Contact was released in 1997. Geez, these guys need to learn something about movies or something.

shanebroughton

They’ll be covering that on the 100th anniversary. Half in the Bag 2054 is going to be great!

Anthony D.

But Cranston is around until the monsters appear and then for the rest of the film there are just set piece moments that are well-crafted (Honolulu, the Vegas scene, the train bridge scene, the stuff in San Francisco before the fight). That stuff was really interesting just from a pure visual standpoint. I don’t know, for a summer movie it sure kept my interest. I’d rather see Godzilla a hundred times before I’d see Transformers 4 once.

Striker, Ted

He was supposed to be the emotional core of the movie, and it just didn’t work. It did provide ample opportunities to take a leak, knowing that nothing of interest was going to happen until 30 minutes from the end of the movie. I wanted to like this movie too, I’m not just here to trash it.

Anthony D.

The plane jump, the fight, the atomic breath, none of that was big enough?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

It’s going to be great….

Sam Pagano

The real problem is more that the shit they cut away from instead of the fighting is boring as hell.

Striker, Ted

At least Tobey Maguire can almost be seen as an actual person, not a lump of meat with a mouth and ears.

Anthony D.

No, that news report cutaway was really clever. Besides, the whole fight takes place on the news report anyway.

Anthony D.

All the stuff before the monsters appeared in this film had Bryan Cranston in it, though, and his character was actually good so I was interested in that stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Ah, crap. I was really looking forward to this one. I’ll still watch it I guess. Atleast Hollywood don’t have to starve this summer, the ticket money buys them a cheeseburger and that’s a good thing…….

Sam Pagano

Which changes the fact that most of the movie centers around vacuous military characters with nothing interesting happening about them at all? Hell I actually didn’t like the news cutaway, I felt that was more just an annoying way to not show the only interesting thing in the movie. I wouldn’t have a problem with it if the things they showed us instead of the fighting weren’t simultaneously uninteresting and largely pointless.

Anthony D.

Well you must have missed a lot of cool set piece moments taking a leak before the fight at the end. It’s a summer movie that’s actually decent, not really a whole lot to complain about here. It’s not the greatest movie ever made but it is a well-done Hollywood blockbuster, something we don’t get a ton of each year.

Striker, Ted

A lot of it was dull, lifeless, contrived, they’re a family so you have to care about them b.s, when Godzilla was on screen, it’s great. I’d rather more back story on Ken Watanabe’s character then what we got.

http://soawkwardshow.tumblr.com so awkward

You mean the five second fight where Godzilla punched the monster, then walked over and punched the other monster? That wasn’t worth the build up, no. The plane jump? Where once again we see Godzilla out of focus, at night, filmed through somebody’s gas mask? Cool as a teaser trailer, not as a major action sequence toward the end of the film. The atomic breath was cool.

Anthony D.

Well I don’t know about you but I took the pointlessness of the humans’ actions to sort of have a point. As in, human beings are powerless to stop these things and, as Ken Watanabe’s character said, they need to just “let them fight.” Plus the build-up to the fight was loaded with well-made set piece moments (Honolulu, Vegas, the train on the bridge, the destruction of San Francisco).

FirestarTom

I was referring to the film that this review is about. Godzilla 2014

HeliopanND09

Comparing Alien to Godzilla… it’s really comparing apples to oranges. Alien defies genre. Scott and his eye for visuals… Giger’s design… the Alien creature design was excellent… the atmosphere… the pacing… the characters (every character serves a particular role)… pitch perfect. I’ll let Rothery elucidate… he sums it up very well.

It took a bit longer than five seconds. And the plane jump still worked in the film, it was a well-made sequence.

Anthony D.

And when I referenced 117 minutes in my comment, I was talking about the length of Alien, not Godzilla.

FirestarTom

and?

Anthony D.

I know that comparing Alien to Godzilla is comparing art to a blockbuster, I was just trying to make a point about how both films build up to the monster moments in order to not shoot their loads too soon.

Sam Pagano

Well first, even if the futility has a point, it’s still completely pointless to the narative, and no matter what point is being made overlong scenes of the militarily not managing to do anything at all is boring.

Those set piece moments do not a proper movie make, outside of them there wasn’t much interesting going on, even when the monsters where in the movie it just had this ridiculously slow pace which sucked tension out of the movie.

Anthony D.

It’s not pointless to the narrative, it builds on the sense of hopelessness and apocalyptic weight that the appearance of these creatures represents.

Bobby Lee

Thought I was the only person who was just underwhelmed by this movie. I just sat in the theater, waiting for it to live up to the hype, and it never did. Granted, everything up to Cranston’s death was good, and everything after the HALO jump we see in the trailer was good, but everything in between was sleep-inducing.

Kick-Ass was, literally, just “Generic Action Adventure Man”, and I don’t even know why Olson was in the movie. She had nothing to do the entire time. Cranston should have been the lead role, but NOOO. This is a AAA summer blockbuster, so the lead HAS TO BE a young, attractive, mannequin like Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

They had plenty of time in this movie to develop the characters while Godzilla was off-screen, but what we got was Kick-Ass babysitting an Asian kid while Elizabeth Olson sits at home and cries, until Godzilla beats up the giant monsters. It was a mediocre experience

I’m not denying it was a well made film, I just thought the structure was so repetitive that it became boring to me, and nothing at the end ever brought me back.

This movie kind of reminded me of a Three Stooges film, if it had a script by Woody Allen or Neil Simon. I’m sure it would be brilliantly witty, but that would miss the point of the three stooges. A Godzilla film shouldn’t be “Hitchcockian” in its approach. It should be fun.

http://www.silentrocco.com/ Silent Rocco

I thought the son was kind of empty but ok, what I found really horrible: ALL kids. Such a miscast. Apart from that, epic movie. Loved that they give you your monster fix with the MUTOs, and the scenes with Godzilla didn’t come often, but when he struck it felt so much more powerful. Great classic dramaturgy. Jurassic Park or Jaws are slow burners as well. Especially in an IMAX, fantastic!

So why do they make up the vast majority of the post monster scenes in the movie? Again, my complaint isn’t that that they failed to achieve anything, it’s that they where boring and failed to achieve anything. It’s pointless because even in the seeming goal they had for it, it just made things longer.

BTNband

I agree with seeing Godzilla hundred times rather than any of the Transformes movies. As standalone scenes, these monster attacks are usually well made. As i sayed its not a bad movie, its good to look at and the monsters really have some weight to them which is great, but i wanted something to care about when they are attacking, cause you know the gonna get to the end battle anyway, so theres really nothing to push the story forward. As far as big sommer blockbusters go, its definitely passable. Give it some good human elements or dont get rid the only interesting character in the first 30 minutes and i would have enjoyed it much more.

Jason Ross

Does Godzirra say “Ow, My Groin” at any point during the film. Subtitles are acceptable.

Aristedes Kyros

Really good review but you forgot to address one very important (in my opinion) matter. When are you gonna get off your lazy ass and give us the next Mr. Plinkett review?

That I agree, I liked that Godzilla, and the other monsters completely ignored the humans, or reacted the way you would to a mosquito, slight annoyance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

R.I.P HR Geiger.

JustWantToComment

by average person you mean an American.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

….and kevin Bacon. I rewatched it before christmas last year. I kind of liked it.

John DeSpirito

This was pretty dead on. Exactly how I felt about the movie too.

backwards7

I would like to see a film where a small family hardware store in a quite mid-western town struggles to remain financially solvent in the aftermath of a Godzilla attack.

The economy is in the doldrums on account of all the damage that’s been done to the national infrastructure and people just not bothering to come into work. There’s a maple-leaf shaped dinosaur footprint in the middle of the only road and out of town, rendering it impassable. (In this movie Godzilla is a metaphor for the invasion of the US by Canada).

The bank is about to foreclose on the business. The male lead played by John Hamm is struggling to get to grips with his new role as family patriarch after his father dies of ‘the cancer’. There’s a sub-plot where one of the female characters is married to an abusive deputy sheriff who is attempting to stifle her ambitions to become a nurse.

Just when things are at their darkest everybody rallies round. The local biker gang helps to repair to road. A nearby Amish community turns out to have developed barn-building techniques that can stand up to attacks by giant radioactive sea monsters.

At the end of the film the family gathers around a TV to watch footage of carnage and destruction from New York which has been completely destroyed.

It’s a feel good movie that speaks to the American heartland.

Leo Silva

FUCK YEAH! I was waiting for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

The trailer shows a smashed up Statue of liberty, was it the in New york or is it the one in Japan?

DocMorgan

I lost it at the Sarah Jessica Parker joke.

Alex

The Kubrick-style shot of Rich Evans. Pure gold.

Daniel

Sweet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

I would so watch that. The female character who is married to abusive deputy sheriff falls in love with barnbuilder amish guy and they decide to leave and go to New York to make some money. -Now no one can get a hold of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

She was just a CGI-character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

That’s Samamlam…. Samamalilan….. Shyamalan…… no, wait… you racist.

Striker, Ted

Meesa gonna give you da bongo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

It ought to be brought to Smallville. Nothing to smash there. Exept productplacement.

hablabap

Thank god, another Half In The Bag. I wish you people would churn out about eight of these a day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Be easy one’m Sporky, there just a couple of VCR-repairmen.

backwards7

The ironic twist is that he’s sucking someone else’s dick. I saw it coming a mile off.

Studio Executive

See it and like it, or see it and hate it… Just go see it, my summer house needs a bigger pool.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Well, despite Mike’s recommendation, I’ll still pass on this movie. I’m tired of special effects and cities being destroyed. I would rather watch a good character movie. However, there are not many new character movies being made anymore. I might as well watch the movie Wait Until Dark, The Hustler, White Heat, Mister Roberts, The French Connection, Ronin or Operation Crossbow.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Lazy? Surely you’re joking?

Johann Schmidt

First thing in the morning, made my day. My quick review. ’98 has annoying characters that you wish would just shut up. ’14 has boring characters that you wish would just shut up.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

I’m tired of seeing New York destroyed. Can’t Hollywood destroy Seattle or Miami?

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

You like it because you have memories attached to it.

Allan Jensen

Knowing that you will never get to have sex with Rich Evans…

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Might as well wait until the movie is release at the library so that you can check it out and forward through all the boring dialogue. I bet the making of this movie is more interesting than the movie itself.

humdiblifier

That’s alotta fish!

Heinzy

Superman vs Godzilla, coming this fall. Because why not.

Meester Smeeth

Best thing about Godzilla ’98 is the fact that this song somehow made it on to the soundtrack:

So, is it as good as Cloverfield, not as good as Cloverfield or gooder than Cloverfield?

Justin Lee

The only great thing to come out of 98 Godzilla was “Deeper Underground” by Jamiroquai.

Rodrigo Cervantes

You realize that what you’re doing is not revealing “plot holes” right? I know you think you’re doing the whole Mr. Plinkett thing, but the difference is that you know jackshit about movies, and these guys actually know what they are doing.

I adored this movie, but I’m not gonna say it’s precisely art and thoughtful. What it isn’t, is dumb.

The bomb expert couldn’t deactivate the bomb because the door thing was jammed. They showed this several times. The slow whale thing was the movie asking you to suspend your disbelief since on the other side there was a 100m lizard passed out. I don’t see how this breaks the veil, you’re just being obnoxious. They also went out of their way to show that the detonation was mechanical, not digital so the EMP wouldn’t jam it. The Muto goes to San Francisco to meet the Male, who was coming from Honolulu. The earthquakes were caused by the Muto excavating. The son was everywhere for us to see Godzilla enter the bay, the motif of the movie, up until the end fight, is that we only see Godzilla if the characters see him. The Nuclear Plant wasn’t in Tokyo, but in a fictional town called Janjira. The wife drops the son what? Did you even watch the movie or were you tweeting throughout? Why the wife puts the son on an evacuation bus with someone she knows? Should I really explain why? The point of the bomb is made by Ken Watanabe IN the movie and they say the blast will kill it, not the radiation. And we see it fail, so what’s your point? You mean to say why not come up with a better plan? Like what? The treaty thing, again, how the fuck does it matter? This is just you being a dick. They send the nuke from another warehouse, how the fuck does this matter? You want a tiny Google Maps prompt on the lower right corner that details where the plant is and what the travel will be like? Why didn’t they helicopter it? Because they needed the amazing bridge set piece. Via helicopter would have gotten stolen also, just that instead you would have a boring sequence. He survived because we needed him not to die? I don’t get how this makes the movie dumb. Do you even know how to watch movies?

Most of this “why’s” are pointless. If you actually watch the movie all those doubts shouldn’t even come up. Every motivation is stated IN TEXT, not by inference but IN THE TEXT. IT’S IN THE TEXT. You understand why everyone is doing everything, even if it feels dumb, it’s never out of nothing, everything is set up. Read a book god damn it.

Mitchell Taco Nash

Dammit you fucks! You knew I was seeing Ex-Mans: Dates of Future Pats in an hour and had to leave soon. You bought my daily planner schedule down at the Stalker Store on Coleman Street. I know because I sold it to you.

Robotpals

I love Tremors. I actually like all the sequels too. And the series.

LelouchtheFilial

ACTUALLY, Mike. New York City is NOT the most densely populated city in the world.
The most densely populated city in the world in clearly Sarah Jessica Parker’s cunt.
For more information, you can watch her hit film ‘City in the Sex.’

Mike… what’s that coffee mug? Is that coffee mug full of beer or something?

Rolls Canhardly

Jay’s thoughts on Godzilla are almost exactly what I felt watching it. It was like an Indiana Jones movie if you only saw Indiana Jones for seven minutes and the other ninety minutes was Shia LeBouf swinging from trees.

diehounderdoggen

Tae Bo Confirmed for Best of the Worst.

dollar store cashier wife

Jay is on point.The human element is utter shite in Godzuki 2K14.If you have the will power to not fell asleep/die/go into a boredom induced coma until the film gets to the badass fights then it could earn a recommendation.

Mitchell Taco Nash

“It’s a summer movie that’s actually decent, not really a whole lot to complain about here.”

Are you fucking kidding me? Someone can mildly enjoy a film yet still point out the places where it failed. Hell, I gave this film a 3.5/5, which is ‘decent’, yeah, but it still had a lot of problems and I enjoy talking about them with other people that enjoy films. Saying we should be complacent simply because it was ‘actually decent’ robs us of any discourse and weakens your argument to the likes on, “Well, at least it wasn’t as bad as those OTHER films.” Cool set pieces are a nice technical achievement that you can enjoy on their own, but without a solid emotional core or fleshed out human characters for us to get invested into, it’s just cool looking and flashy CGI without any heart.

Hell, you could even get away with having shit character if the film had some sort of theme or parable going for it. In this film, Godzilla and those giant beasts were just a lazy metaphor for nature, nothing much deeper than that. In the original Gojira, Godzilla was the physical embodiment of the atomic bombs and his destruction of the cities was a parallel to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It doesn’t have to be THAT great of a theme or metaphor, but at least TRY for something.

Meester Smeeth

42,857km squared. It’s so dense.

Rob Rose

TO BE FAIR, a staple of the Japanese Godzilla movies is the army shooting at Godzilla and it not affecting anything at all.

poopyslipper69

I wonder how it would have been if Gareth Edwards wrote it and directed it.

He’s the only one that could look constipated enough to carry this film, obviously.

leperelo

Mike and Jay, Your idea of a monster movie based around the human angle was, I think, already made, and it’s a pretty good B-movie. You should already know it. It’s called ‘Q – The Winged Serpent’ (1984). It has a stunning performance by Michael Moriarty as a cheap hustler who holds the city to ransom because he’s the only guy who knows where the monster is nesting. If you get the chance, you really should watch it. It’s an excellent flick.

Bit surprised, this film was intolerable for me and seemed genuinely stupid. I would have walked out if I hadn’t gone with people. Still, glad they did this instead of piggybacking the ‘Godzilla’ review onto ‘X-Men 4.First Class’.

dollar store cashier wife

Olson played the important role knowed as “jerk off material”.

Hank_Henshaw

Actually, Las Vegas.

Memoman

Is there a website that tells me when to take breaks after the Bryan Cranston and just before the big fight?

What are these feelings I get in my crotch from this gif? Anyone else feel that?

Meester Smeeth

That bit where he’s shouting at… whomever… in that clip just reminded me of Hal in Malcolm In The Middle.

Sleep debt to the sleep mafia.

It’s Godzilla, the human scenes always suck. As long as the monster part works, it’s a successful Godzilla movie.

Alex

‘Big man in Japan’ is a monster movie done right.

but Tremors is cool, too..

http://hardycases.com/ Hale

If they make a sequel, I’m hoping it’s just a shot-for-shot remake of Godzilla vs Megalon. Then we could have a grim and gritty version of Jet Jaguar, and see a massive Hollywood budget go into recreating this scene;

But the point is lost if the characters are not compelling. Problem with “Bay-formers” is that it was ALL spectacle, and NO characterization. And, it didn’t help the fact that the designs of the Transformers were not distinctive enough to invoke G1 Transformers. You might as well play “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em” at that point…

I’ve only got a few minutes before I leave to see that mutant film with Huge Jackedman, but before I go I’ll share this image from the theatre. I guess they mixed the two L’s at the end of Godzilla, either that or that helicopter got royally fucked.

Roman Monaghan

You need a human story. Without it, the movie would fall apart. I was
watching the bonus features of Pacific Rim last night, and the human
characters were described perfectly there. They are anchors, they hold
down the weight of the whole movie and this certainly applies to Godzilla as well.

I’ve noticed the character Ford Brody getting a lot of flack for being too boring. But guess what? I found him far more interesting than the young man of the original 1954 film. Ford is a military man, he’s supposed to remain calm and collected no matter the situation. Just like Godzilla himself, Ford had a job to do it, and his
mind was set on it. Godzilla was there to restore balance and protect
the Earth (as a whole) from the Mutos. Ford was doing something similar,
but on a smaller scale, as well as protecting his own family. Maybe
that somewhat explains the look they gave each other? Hmmmmm….

I also loved Elle Brody. She was there from a surviving perspective to
counterbalance her husband’s military perspective. There wasn’t much she
could do once the hospital was evacuated. All she could do was try and
get her son to safety and hope for the best and get the hell out of the
city. There were a lot of moments when the monsters smashed into
buildings, you saw her hiding, ducking for cover. She was the common
civilian, she was basically US. Also, she’s far more interesting than
the young woman in the original.

Yea, the young couple in Gojira are dull as shit. I said it. Even the original has flaws. Even the original didn’t have a lot of screen time for the monster. Yet, it’s
regarded as a classic and untouchable for criticism. Take those nostalgia glasses off, folks.

As far as I’m concerned, Godzilla (2014) is on par with the original and worthy of the name Godzilla. Modern movie goers are heavily spoiled with instant gratification action scenes and I’m glad Edwards didn’t pander to them. Edward’s is a troll
and I love him for it. He made you wait for the good stuff and it was a
fantastic payoff. Alfred Hitchcock once said “make the audience suffer
for as long as possible” so they could appreciate the money shots when
they did occur. Jaws did it. Jurrassic Park did it. The original Gojira
did it. THIS movie did it. And it was awesome.

Anyone who doesn’t appreciate that: Micheal Bay is gonna have a movie out later this year that’ll probably be more appropriate for your IQ level.

Good things come to those who wait. And after 10-14 years waiting for this
movie, I’m glad my wait is over. And it blew me away.

fugly17

WTF. How can I trust the opinion of 2 people who didn’t like ID4 and Stargate. Remind me to never watch these guys again.

Mitchell Taco Nash

My Godzilla Review: Series 1, Novel 1, Chapter 1

By Roman Monaghan

Erik Cyree

I liked the new godzilla. it did need more cranston though.

Mark Bisone

Shameless bait and switch with the trailer, it seems. Who wouldn’t want to see Heisenberg try to outwit a 300-foot tall nuclear dragon for two hours? Science, bitches!

Roman Monaghan

I feel like I’m the only person who knows Bryian Cranston as Hal from Malcom in the Middle first and Walter White second.

….. or has ever seen a Toho made Godzilla movie before in their life and thus knew what to expect going into this one =/

Patrick Cyr

Everyone finally starts to get their lives back together…and then King Ghidorah appears and destroys their whole town with a flick of his tail.

Domo_Konnichiwa

It’s like the director was going through his fonts, saw the word “Comic” and used Comic Sans because of the comic book hero, The Amazing Bulk.

Am I doing this right?

Roman Monaghan

“Densely” populated?

I’d assume Tokyo.

There’s like no elbow room in fucking japanese cities.

dollar store cashier wife

I love how not liking the high piece of art that is godzila 2014 makes you a M.Bay fan.Alien,Jurrasic Park and Jaws too had grand buildup and showed restraint toward it’s monsters but it didn’t made it’s characters into lifeless archetypes with the dullest dialogue and acting to boot as well.Like with last year’s kaiju bullcrap Pacific Rim it seems some nerds gotta believe that people who are not villing to give a pass to a film that’s devotes 75% of it’s screentime to shitty characters/actors are just dumb mouth breathers with ADD.Oh well guess I’ll join Jay in Transformers 4 midnight premiere.

LelouchtheFilial

“Breaking Bad is pretty much the greatest thing ever.”
It really is.
One may call it the descent to the Dark Side that George Lucas failed to make.
“Walter was… seduced by the Dark Side. Now, he’s more methamphetamine than man. Twisted and evil.
Bitch.”
Badger and Skinny Pete probably have a better understanding of Star Wars than George Lucas.

dollar store cashier wife

With almost 6000$ a month from Patreon they better.

dunesen

Did you guys record Rich Evans watching all of Godzilla? If so, could you post the video?

Mark Bisone

Cranston has comic chops, for sure. Hal was funny, but Heisenberg was apocalyptic and unforgettable. It’s like saying “I know Sir Lawrence Oliver as Clive Dering from No Funny Business first and as Henry V second.”

LelouchtheFilial

You are so NOT the only one who knows him from Malcolm in the Middle first.
Bryan Cranston is always marked by past performances. He’s in Breaking Bad? Hey, look, it’s Malcolm’s dad! LBJ? Heisenberg for President!
I agree with Mark Bisone– watching Heisenberg take on what is tantamount to a natural disaster would have been rad. Shit, he’d already (SPOILERS) defeated every sub-group of the Latino community and then white supremacists, because he’s an equal opportunity murderer.
Where do you go from there? You fight fucking Godzilla.

humdiblifier

I wish I could watch their pie-eating episode of Star Trek.

WrongWithYourFace

I love how he says “the most difficult part is to not go too far.” Little did he know… “I think may have gone too far in a few places.” It’s like that scene in Star Wars: “Close the blast doors! Open the blast doors! Open the blast doors!”

It’s like poetry, they rhyme?

LelouchtheFilial

Someone have THEM write the script of the next Trek movie! Fuck Orci!

Sleep debt to the sleep mafia.

Less about standards and more about “What did you expect?” Godzilla is Godzilla. I’m not going to try and complain about a movie like Dead Alive not being a drama the same way I wouldn’t expect Godzilla to be anything else.

dollar store cashier wife

Thing is the monster part is 10-15% of this movie.The main focus is Kick “Wooden acting” Ass trying to get back to his waifu.

Kai-Ta-Loipa

Bowlth of them.

Sleep debt to the sleep mafia.

Oh, I’m not saying we couldn’t use more monster action, what I’m saying is that it’s par the course for the series in the boring humans respect.

Mark Bisone

I watched all them Toho movies as a kid. One of my local UHF stations (Philly 57, I think) used to play the shit out of them every Saturday afternoon. They were very funny… I especially liked those two microscopic bitches who’d pop up and sing whenever Mothra was in town. Great stuff.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Battery acid and antifreeze.

Domo_Konnichiwa

It’s probably in line with Cloverfield. There were things that really pissed me off in Cloverfield, but I still walked away happy to have at least seen it once.

Rolls Canhardly

Yeah, but the campy cheesiness of those old movies makes the non Godzilla stuff kind of fun. This was just boring.

Mark Bisone

Somehow I don’t think this latest role will carry on the grand tradition. Nobody’s gonna say, “Look, it’s Joe Brody from Godzilla Reboot #43 playing Marcus Licinius Crassus in the Spartacus Reboot!”

WrongWithYourFace

When Mike said that my interest in the series skyrocketed.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Why you gotta be mean to the Muslims and Jews? What the Hell are they supposed to eat now?

LelouchtheFilial

He broke the chain, at last.

Roman Monaghan

Fun fact: that Godzilla cartoon show?

Way better than it had any earthly right to be. It’s on Netflix, I’d recommend checking it out.

Roman Monaghan

Bitching that there “wasn’t enough Godzilla in a movie called Godzilla” makes you a M.Bay fan, actually, is what I said. Was really refreshing that they actually complimented the way the movie teased the monsters and talked about how that’s, you know, what good movies do, unlike every other fucking reviewer out there whose talked about this movie and apparently just wanted a 2 hour long giant monster fight.

Harry Palm

You should’ve watched the original 1954 one, too. I watched it last week and it holds up very well.

WrongWithYourFace

Thank you, that’ll be all.

Mark Bisone

Well, to be fair to Lucas (Christ, did I just say that?), Vince Gilligan et all had five seasons to tell that story. Still, it never felt like a second of film was wasted. Just finished another rewatch of the entire series, and it’s incredible how streamlined and efficient the storytelling is, while still seeming to capture every important detail. I climax in my official BB tighty-whities every time I think about it.

WrongWithYourFace

Thank you. That’s quite enough.

Mark Bisone

Right. I barely remember the shark from Jaws. When I think of Jaws, I picture the scene with Brody, Quint and Hooper showing off their scars and singing “Show me the way to go home” in the belly of the Orca.

I love it how in the 1998 film it was the French nuclear bombs that created the monster. Damn you French, and damn your reckless weapons programs that threaten the world!

Anthony D.

Jaws and Alien weren’t about an iconic film character like Godzilla, though. The shark and the xenomorph are iconic to us now, but back then they weren’t, so the films needed interesting human characters more than this film did.

Harry Palm

Are you saying that ‘Pacific Rim’ had a human story in it? That’s insane. The characters and plot were so generic and formulaic that I couldn’t even tell some of the main characters apart. It’s just as awful as this new ‘Godzilla’.

Kenlin Bros

But then he dies, and the monsters are still not the focus for another hour. The Eden Hazard soldier asshole just sucks the life out of that hour, until the end where the monsters can’t repair the emotionally desaturated film.

Charlie Wilkinson

Its gonna be great.

Charlie Wilkinson

Its so dense. There’s so many things happening.

Chadhulhu

Only thing like from the emmerich(sp) films is the destruction, his storylines are horrible. i want to love the new Godzilla, but from what I hear, I am getting uneasy about it.

I love how one of the ads at the side of the page is for the new Adam Sandler movie

Anthony D.

My position is that I can forgive the film’s lackluster main character because the rest of it was done so well. The visual effects were superb, the action was well-directed and well-shot, and the cast was really good (other than ATJ who was just average). It’s a good film. It’s not boring. That’s not complacency, that’s an unwillingness to harp on the one negative in the film when overall it was a good film.

Besides, ATJ’s character was fleshed out. He easily passes RLM’s character test from the Phantom Menace review and provides an emotional core to the film. He’s trying to get home to his family. It’s a simple one, and ATJ may not be the best actor in the world, but it was there. Just because you personally didn’t feel like it was good enough doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The only major human character that wasn’t fleshed out was David Strathairn’s admiral character because he was just a stock military guy.

As for a deeper theme or meaning, the concept of a western-made Godzilla film is inherently flawed precisely because of the original film’s allegorical origins. Westerners can’t co-opt a Japanese response to Hiroshima/Nagasaki,when we’re the ones who were the cause of it, then try to change the meaning of the character into something else. It’s a cultural touchstone in Japan so the best we can hope to do is make an entertaining and well-made film that is an enjoyable way to spend two hours. This film did that.

Kenlin Bros

I thought that Pacific Rim was good, but that Godzilla was bad for almost exactly the reasons you state in your first paragraph. I was quite surprised that you then started saying nice things about Godzilla from that premise.

Pacific Rim did *just enough* on the human side to engage me. Godzilla started out strong, then said “We’ve done enough now. Kill Bryan Cranston!” and immediately lost me.

Anthony D.

Everything that happens after Cranston dies is focused on the monsters.

Markham

Godzilla Vs Megalon is my pick for the best silly Godzilla movie, Terror of Mechagodzilla for the best silly but somehow serious movie, and Godzilla Vs Destoroyah for HOLY SHIT ITS GOING NUCLEAR

Anthony D.

Oh, I see, you edited your comment to say what you really meant.

Anthony D.

Welcome to Hollywood in 2014 where everything has to be dark and serious, right?

http://www.youtube.com/user/TwiIight0ne Muscle Hedonist

Would you like to be reminded via a daily telephone call, sir? We also offer helpful body tattoos.

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

Jay should keep us updated on where he is on Breaking Bad.

Also, was Rich crying? or about to cry? Don’t lose hope Rich.

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

I think they showed all the good parts. It mainly consists of Rich’s infamous blank stare, and the part where he loses it with the “fish icon on military gps” scene.

Markham

Luckily they have Jean Reno (with his hunger for croissants and thirst for French roast coffee, he’s French you see) cleaning up the messes that his government makes.

Kenlin Bros

No, it is not.

Scenes like Elizabeth Olsen putting her kid on the bus and taking FOREVER to say goodbye while a whole bus full of kids watch patiently for some fucking reason.

Scenes like bland soldier protagonist making phone calls and returning some fucking kid to his parents and riding on a train with a load of other bland soldiers because it is VITALLY IMPORTANT that he get to San Francisco for some reason, as if he could actually do something. I just got so tired of his gormless face. It killed the movie.

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

If you haven’t seen it. Avoid spoilers (internet) at all costs and watch it. It’s arguably in the top 5 shows of all time.

Kenlin Bros

I blame 9/11. And Obama.

LelouchtheFilial

But, really, if there’s a Dark Side or Light Side of the Force in Breaking Bad, it’s a LOT more subtle than in Star Wars, where good and evil is less ambiguous. The Force in Breaking Bad was kind of Pulp Fiction divine intervention.
In Breaking bad, you needed to turn Walt from a high school chemistry teacher into a Kingpin who could willingly kill people. In Star Wars, Anakin already had the fighting talent and the status of a warrior (and his training didn’t need to take that long. Luke’s didn’t) so all that was needed of Anakin was for him to be tempted by evil.
Vince Gilligan had the benefit of time, but George Lucas had the benefit of fantasy.

Alex

Breaking Bad is definitely a well-made series, but after season4 I stopped watching it. I can’t explain why, but it never hooked me really. Maybe it was because at that time I was really into Mad Men and Sopranos, which are much more different in tone and subtlety.
When I recenly re-visited the first 2 seasons of Breaking Bad I gave up again

Kenlin Bros

Book a table at a restaurant nearby for about half an hour after the film starts, go and have a lovely meal, then come back in for monster fight dessert.

Aaron Carter

They say Roland wants to be Spielberg, but completely ignore how ’14 is PACKED with reference to that director’s films. And none of them are subtle.

Though I’m not complaining about the way ’14 does it. Actually kind of cool how it’s reworked.

Pantokrator

That burn was genuinely sick, bro

jaymanxyz2

I think the things that saved this movie for me was the fact that I watched with friends and I really liked the score. It was an Ok movie, I guess, but I’ll probably never watch it again.

Constantine1985

I’m with Jay: the movie disappointed me because I wanted to see more brawling monsters (i.e. Pacific Rim). However, I do agree with Mike, too: Bryan Cranston rules the universe, if they had kept him around, I’d be ok with only the last 20 minutes being about the monsters. You hacks rock!

illuminatedwax

Because you never really get the full picture of a speculative event like a Godzilla attack until you see it from the perspective of rural white male America.

dooder

That’s not Kathy Griffith, that’s the redheaded lady who porked George Costanzo and got a raise with the Yankees. Cathie Griffins was redheaded lady comedienne who call Gerry Steinfeld the devil in her standup special.

Robotpals

I genuinely enjoyed Godzilla (2014), and I genuinely despised Godzilla (1998). And Bryan Cranston as the main protagonist would have elevated either one. Seriously, why wasn’t he the main human character of this movie?

Constantine1985

By the way, I need some help here, and possible SPOILERS, please.
In the new Godzilla, they don’t really tell where the bloody thing was resting/sleeping, do they? I remember something about a few nuclear bombs somewhere, but that’s it. Then Godzilla just, like, awakens when the Moths start going around?

Constantine1985

“Damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Mark Bisone

I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the comparison. It’s like trying to compare a child’s crayon coloring book to Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Much like Alien’s pithy pitch was “Jaws in space”, I’ve heard BB’s pitch was, “Mr.Chips turns into Scarface.” And that *is* the story/character arc, shortened to Twitter length. But the art is definitely found in the gradual seduction of evil and the destructive nature of secrets. In a realistic setting, this requires time and patience. In fantasy, it just required Ben Kenobi to say “Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.”

I’m with Stoklasa on this one: “Were the prequels a story that needed to be told? Nooooooo!” I suppose if we really had to tell it, it could be told in broad strokes relying on time-honored conventions. The simplest, most humanistic way to tell it would have been to recreate the Lancelot-Arthur-Guinevere love triangle between Kenobi-Annakin-Some Woman. The Vader we see in the original trilogy would have been like the wandering, outcast years of the Lancelot depicted in Boorman’s “Excalibur” film, to be redeemed in the final battle at Camlann.

In fact, “Excalibur” might have been the perfect template for the prequel films. But that would have required George to abandon his boring, sexless vision of the republic, and show people behaving like real people instead of weird space aliens.

Memoman

Or! Go to the food court, get something greasy and proceed to administer drugs in the parking lot in preparation for the awesome fight. Note to self: Set alarm before consuming drugs and buy ice cream and soda at the concession stand.

Miguel Angel Teran

Yessss Finally!

humdiblifier

For some reason when I think of Ohura and Scotty, I get Star Trek 5 flashbacks… SEXY!!!

tveye

He was underwater. Really, really deep underwater. With his size it’s pretty believable that he could handle the pressure.

tveye

I’ve heard this from lots of people. I’ll definitely check it out.

Jean-François Martel

I shit you not the Godzilla cartoon is really good. All 40 episodes are on Netflix right now.

Jean-François Martel

I think Hollywood is trying to Shia Laboeuf him.

Alex Lee

They have more humanity than Orci.

Jean-François Martel

Olsen is there to make sure we know the meat popsicle of a main characters has a case of the notgays i guess.

Jean-François Martel

i don’t physically, me being into the meat popsicle kind more, but i understand it intellectually

Paul Schumann

That’s so frustrating to hear that Cranston’s hardly in the film and instead they have that young dumbass instead. The only explanation I can think of is this http://youtu.be/6sF-uURtU4A

Jegsimmons

I side with Mike on this one, while the humans were boring for the most part, it was sprinkled with enough goodness and sexy monster teases to hold you until the third act
WHEN
ALL
HELL
BREAKS
LOOSE

And that final fight will make you rock and boner and pump your fist in the air.

Mike Jakermen

For me Roland Emmerich films are like watching a Train Wreck. Its Horrible but i just can’t look away.

Paul Schumann

I watched it after the Dissolve praised it. It’s… alright.

Domo_Konnichiwa

They didn’t fuck up the letters. You found a wormhole.

wlicari

At the end Godzilla should have walked in-land instead of into the sea.

disqus_1dQzKD1n4Z

Which is why I find Pacific Rim superior. Yes the characters are idiotic, but you cannot deny that the movie is fun, with big fight scenes and sweeping and exciting heroic music. There is literally no tease of the monsters in that movie, yet I still wasn’t bored with the action at all, and always excited to see a new monster.

The whole teasing of the monster is overrated these days. Back in the day people were actually scared of the monsters on screen. That’s never going to happen these days with the kind of CGI overexposure we’ve gotten. Who of you was even terrified for a second by Godzilla? Even with all the teasing to build up suspense?

It is commendable that a director can restrain himself from going all Micheal Bay on us, but in this case it was not the right kind of movie to show off this kind of restraint. And not being Micheal Bay does not mean you have to be a polar opposite, Pacific Rim shows this is possible as well.

Godzilla 2014 just seemed very bland to me, and all I was thinking about was how much I wanted to see a Godzilla movie after going to Pacific Rim, yet I found that movie to be more entertaining in retrospect.

A side note on the effects of the movie, I found that the visuals were convincing, but somehow lacked “dynamic battle damage” on the monsters. Meaning when they bashed punched and got atomic breathed, those actions seemed to have no visual effect on the creature themselves (Aside from the finishing moves that is). The Mutos had enough limbs to lose one along the way, or even get chunks beat off them. In contrast with Pacific Rim where they were literally torn apart bit by bit. That is why the action scenes feel very sterile to me, like there is not a lot at stake since actions have no consequence.

pop

98 Godzilla is so delightfully 90s, can’t hate it

Junkie

No review of Adam Sandler’s Blended? For shame, RLM.

pop

2014 godzilla is bland

robottawa

For as much as I dislike Tobey Maguire in every single non-Spiderman role, his complete and utter dorkiness is perfect for Spider-man.

I nearly always agree with what Jay has to say about characters, but I have to disagree with him on this one. Yes, the characters were largely flat and simple, but that in itself shouldn’t keep you from empathizing with them. Or maybe I’m too into Shakespeare. Either way, I think one of the great things about the film was its exposition of humanity not as a force of evil or good, but totally insignificant. We see it from humanity’s perspective because we’re humans, but the humans in the film had absolutely no effect on the events regarding monster fights and I actually LIKED that. It fits with what Ken Watanabe’s character was saying about the human propensity for thinking of nature as in their control, when really it’s the other way around. I dunno; just my two cents.

Seid

Pretty disappointing film all around. Cranston’s part was interesting and so were the last 15 minutes. The rest was boring and uninteresting.

GODzillaISDEAD

THANK YOU! Finally a review that hits the mark. For some reason this movie got high praise from almost everybody, including rotten tomatoes. I was like, wtf?? Is everyone high? the movie was a snooze-fest and an even bigger disappointment to Godzilla fans, such as myself.

Alex Lee

“I don’t even know what it’s called!”

Seid

Also i loved Stargate. Great film!

shinobeast

God, I have missed Rich’s laugh.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Might as well watch the movie THEM while you are at it.

CommanderClash

uh, technically New York ISN’T the most populous city on the planet. CHECK YOUR FACTS.

Eric Moreland

Rich looks so unhappy XD

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Writing good characters is not Hollywood’s style.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Ya. Just watched The Amazing Spiderman and felt that Garfield was incredibly angry for most of the movie, which doesn’t fit Spiderman. Raimi captured the fun of becoming a superhero, and Maguire showcased that nerd-like thrill of learning superpowers.

durhay

Is Godzilla cool about fire safety?

Domo_Konnichiwa

You’re not giving much credit to the rest of humanity for having more humanity than Orci.

Stitchcat

Thanks for seeing this movie for what it is and what it’s supposed to be. A lot of people forget to do that.

Boehm

I want to put my dunst….. awh forget it

LelouchtheFilial

They do a lot less meth than Orci.

LelouchtheFilial

Cats?
I don’t know.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Rich Evans isn’t far enough out of shot in this photo.

And why does the guy on the left have a tiny hand? Does he have tiny tiny Manus cancer?

LelouchtheFilial

No. His fire-breath burned down Gran-zillas house.

Boehm

Well if they have to, plinkett has got the purrfect cookbook

LelouchtheFilial

I will always love Plinkett’s video on the preparation refined pussy cuisine MUCH more than the abominable “Cat Training” video.

Boehm

I knew him from Power Rangers first………

Boehm

I dont know why but i loled for a good min after reading that

SeekerLancer

What’s left to say about Adam Sandler that they haven’t said before?

Domo_Konnichiwa

After watching the movie, I honestly don’t know how they’d keep Cranston in the movie. He’s a great actor, but if they were going from Japan to San Fran, how do you carry him along? He goes with the Asian guy on the boat, watching scenes from the ocean? Does he hop in a helicopter and go into San Fran to find his family or something?

Being honest here, the main character is Godzilla. I understand the love for Cranston, I hate that they did a bait-n-switch. I wish they either didn’t have Cranston at all so people wouldn’t complain that he needed to be in it the whole time, or they did what they did by cutting Cranston out early so he didn’t pull focus from the real star of the movie.

dollar store cashier wife

2012 is the easiest way to give yourself a migraine.

LelouchtheFilial

Well, I guess you could say that Adam Sandler mocks his audience by never portraying himself (as of late) as anything but a rich, successful person with a bigger house than you’ll EVER have, and now he’s turned a third world country into Happy Madison vacation time.
But that’s not enough to warrant having Mike and Jay sit through this movie.

I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t really debate you, but they apparently took Bryan Cranston out of the movie and shifted the focus to his son.
So, it would seem that they failed to make Godzilla the star, anyway.
I’m still seeing this thing, though. Jesus Christ, I just want something to watch.

Mark Bisone

And actually, the Arthurian model would still work in reverse. For instance, maybe Vader and Guinevere could be arranged to be married, via some contrived space-tradition. But then Guinevere is kidnapped. Kenobi rescue her from the bad guys, which results in the usual circle of attraction and space nookie. The perceived betrayal causes Vader to plummet into a spiral of jealousy, rage and contempt for matters of the heart, which he comes to see as a corruption of law and order. The Emperor sense in his despair an opportunity to destroy the Jedis from within, and lures him to the dark side with the promise that Guinevere would be returned to him as his rightful wife. The resulting battle marks the destruction of Camelot, and the rise of the empire.

Again, this story would require the use of actual human beings, instead of cartoon rabbits and boring monks. Kenobi, like Lancelot, would be a flawed human being, and someone who felt more than a little guilt about his part in the empire’s rise, which would go very far to explain the monk-like hermit we see in “A New Hope” who is filled with regret about his “good friend”.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Don’t forget the Prairie Dogs! They were so cute and looked like those adorable gangster hamsters in the Kia Soul commercials.

Now I want to go buy a Kia Soul because of Indiana Jones.

dollar store cashier wife

the appropriate drink for a souless robot.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Is Pussy Kosher?

Domo_Konnichiwa

No, I completely understand that there has to be some human focus. I talked with my parents about movies they watched as teens; the big one was Jaws. They didn’t talk about Dreyfuss or the other actors in the film as the draw. They wanted a great shark movie. The actors in Jaws helped set up the suspense for when the main character showed up.

With this, it’s like the producers/directors didn’t have enough confidence in the script or actors to make this concept work, so they cheated us with Cranston instead of just finding proper actors/script writers who wouldn’t pull focus and help make the monster story wonderful.

http://www.bluemonkeysfrommarz.com/ BlueMonkeysFromMarz.com

While I wasn’t disappointed with the movie, I think if Cranston’s character had done all of his son’s stuff, that would have been better.

M. Night keeps getting work because his films make a killing in foreign markets, even Lady in the water made back its money and After Earth was quite big in China and France. So yeah I look forwards to many more RLM Shyalaman slams.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Even if I was paid to watch 98 Godzilla, I’d be a pretty pissed porcupine.

Robby

Just got back from seeing it. Jesus Christ what a fucking mess.

Domo_Konnichiwa

How do you think they could have improved that, though? Could they have fleshed that concept out more, or would better actors have made the difference?

Cathrine Jhones

I went yesterday to watch this but didn’t impressed from the movie. I wish I would spend that time to watch this pron movie http://bit.ly/newsfaud

Alex

2012 is one of my favorite comedies of all time.

Domo_Konnichiwa

But I want to know specifically which African country the Hollywood Elite wishes to look down upon. Mike and Jay would be knowledgable enough to know which country Adam Sandler wished to plunder.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Speaking of John Cusack, Con-Air is one of my favorite comedies. Jerry Bruckheimer doesn’t get enough credit for Schlock movies around these parts. All the credit is instead given to Nicolas Cage.

Mark Bisone

The shark is the “main character”? No. This is what Jaws was all about:

I disagree with you about these monsters in these types of movies not being characters. The monster as well as the actors propel the plot. Did Milius turn this scene into something beautiful with that speech? Fuck ya. But for me, it’s icing on the cake. It’s not the main reason for seeing the movie.

FirestarTom

“They also went out of their way to show that the detonation was mechanical, not digital so the EMP wouldn’t jam it.”
Never mentioned that, the BOAT would be impacted by EMP and they should have KNOWN this.

“The earthquakes were caused by the Muto excavating.”
no, that is not how earthquakes work.

“The wife drops the son what?”
she offloads the son on a bus to go with someone she knows, but she leaves her son to do, what…

“The bomb expert couldn’t deactivate the bomb because the door thing was jammed.”
wouldn’t a bomb expert know how to deal with a situation like that…

“The Nuclear Plant wasn’t in Tokyo, but in a fictional town called Janjira. ”
The map that they showed, made muto go to Tokyo, not that town. They even had a red dot indicating tokyo, not that fictional town.

“He survived because we needed him not to die?”
Lazy writing, gotcha.

“The point of the bomb is made by Ken Watanabe IN the movie and they say the blast will kill it, not the radiation”

They already said that they had tried this in the bikini atol. and the largest bomb was 15 Megatons, aka the castle bravo detonation.

Read a book? do you realize how dumb the movie truly is? If they are going to have a backstory, and use science to explain shit. perhaps they should recognize well known science. and well known history. The mistakes in the movie were not only plot holes but stupid mistakes when it comes to fact checking. I recognize that a 100m lizard means I should suspend my disbelief but when you try to ground it in reality that just vaporizes all suspension, especially if the grounding is idiotic. When your characters are in situations ONLY because you need them to be there as a script or book convenience then you are a very lazy writer. There is no reason why you cannot create reasons for characters actions and why they are there, aka other characters reasons for having that character there. The scientist pointing to two people he does not know and has NEVER met, and says I need these 2 people who have never seen a muto until that day. then YES its shit writing. Its a garbage film to be laughed at and enjoyed as a high budget movie with the script writing worse than “The Room”.

So yeah, your suspension of disbelief is stronger than your ability to recognize awful script writing, and common known events and science. I think that also makes you an idiot. buts thats ok, your ignorance made you enjoy the movie, good on you.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Maybe Jaws isn’t the perfect example, but isn’t the xenomorph in Alien a character? Isn’t the Predator a character? How about King Kong? We root for their demise or their triumph just like we would an actor. They’re not set pieces to me or simple plot devices. When they’re done right, they make me relate to the situation the actors are in.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Nono. Fuck Puff Daddy.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Hey! You commented! And you didn’t need a witty comment to be part of the club! Yay.

Well, back when “Jaws” was made, monster sharks weren’t the main reason for seeing movies, either. Actually, there wasn’t much of a reason to see movies at all; it was made in blasted ruins of the movie industry, back when it was hard to get people to buy a ticket to anything at all. That’s why most movie buffs refer to it as “the first blockbuster.” It put butts in seats. But it wasn’t part of some “shark movie” trend. There were no money-making trends at that time. It became a phenomenon simply *because* it was a great movie. And it wasn’t great because of a robotic shark that didn’t work half the time.

I think the reason Jaws worked (and continues to work, even today) is because of its dramaturgical triad, similar to the one we seen in the old Bones-Kirk-Spook Star Tracks. Brody, Hooper and Quint are all trying to solve a certain problem (a giant sharl), but approach it from very unique angles based on their unique personal histories and external pressures. Brody is a land-lubbing cop who thought he was retiring from a hellacious beat to a cushy, family-friendly detail in a vacation paradise. Hooper is a rational scientist who knows everything there is to know about sharks. He is full of theories, but lacks much of the worldly experience necessary to hunt it on his own. Quint is full of such worldly experience, but is also anti-social, and often blinded by his personal vendettas against both sharks and men. The story is about three very different people finding a way to join forces to solve a crisis.

Is that why people saw it? Well, back then word-of-mouth was the biggest reason to see anything. Movies stayed in the theaters up to a year (and sometimes longer). I’m sure there were some people who said “the 10% portion of shark stuff is awesome; the 90% human drama was crap.” But it doesn’t explain the film’s mass appeal. The flesh-and-blood characters do.

It’s true that antagonists are the primary plot-drivers; that’s true in all stories. Sometimes they are characters all their own, whereas other times they are forces of nature: mountains to be climbed, storms to be endured; sharks to be blown up with rifles, etc. The shark of “Jaws” was the latter, IMO. It was just a plot device, with no real motivation other than “I’m hungry.”

(Of course, they tried to change that in the shitty sequels, where the immortal shark had some kind of bizarre vendetta. But I’m just talking about the original masterpiece, here.)

tveye

Ha, maybe he ate the radiation from underwater volcanoes? I dunno man

Mark Bisone

I don’t think the “Alien” monster is a character either, no. To me, it has much the same simplistic, mindless motivations as the shark of Jaws. The Predator is certainly a little closer to a character, and King Kong even more so. Both are still very thin characterizations to me, but I admit that we are meant to care somewhat about their motivations to various degrees. There is a mind there to grapple with, even if it’s not exactly a human mind.

The Predator dies because of his pride and hubris. King Kong dies because of love. The alien in Alien and the shark in Jaws die because they were still hungry.

http://flesheatingbug.deviantart.com/ Som

Dammit I’ve watched it, now what am I gonna do

shanebroughton

Hey RedLetterMedia, I think you people need to make a Godzilla-like costume for Rich Evans to wear…for some reason.

Striker, Ted

Ah Amish Jay, haven’t seen that look in a while.

LelouchtheFilial

Plus, it gives Obi-Wan an ACTUAL reason not to tell Luke that Anakin was Darth Vader. None of this “Well, technically… Darth Vader… KIND OF killed your father” crap.

Domo_Konnichiwa

So you’re looking at each monster from the view of “Motivational Plot Device,” correct? It almost becomes a spectrum, then. The more complex the motivations, the more likely the monster is a character to you. I hope I understand that correctly.

I’m not trying to argue, just a discussion I promise, but wouldn’t Godzilla be in the same motivation range as Jaws or Alien? Ignoring the 60 years of backstory, Godzilla is simply hunting his prey. I know Jason has a bit of a backstory, but he’s just out to kill kids. Why do we like these monsters, then? Does a creature have to have complex motivations to be a character?

My ex wife

I think I’d like to see that.

Rodrigo Cervantes

“Never mentioned that, the BOAT would be impacted by EMP and they should have KNOWN this.”

They mentioned it and showed the gears on the bomb. But you’re right, they should have known that and brought down a swan pedal boat from the lake. There were a lot of options to solve this, for sure.

“no, that is not how earthquakes work”

I know that’s not how earthquakes work. Brian Cranston says they’re not earthquakes. But the rumble you called earthquakes was caused by the MUTO excavating. How else can I put it? I’m not making this up, it’s in the movie, in the text.

“leaves her son to do, what…”

She leaves the son with a friend who happens to be on a bus that is evacuating children from the city and she stays to wait for Kickass. That’s the situation. How is that stupid?

“wouldn’t a bomb expert know how to deal with a situation like that…”

Maybe, and he tries. The first time they decide they have no time to work on it while the battle is going on above them. The second time he tries and passes out.

“The map that they showed, made muto go to Tokyo, not that town. They even had a red dot indicating tokyo, not that fictional town.”

I don’t recall what the map shows. But you do see the evacuated town. They run around it.

“Lazy writing, gotcha.”

You sure got them right. The old “he didn’t die from falling into water from really high ergo your movie sucks balls” argument.

“They already said that they had tried this in the bikini atol. and the largest bomb was 15 Megatons, aka the castle bravo detonation.”

So… What’s your point? They also said that the nuclear tests, including Lucky Dragon No. 5, were made to destroy Godzilla. So why can’t that bomb be 15 kilotons? Because you say so? You know that Hitler wasn’t really killed in a Theatre despite what Quentin Tarantino said, right? They are only messing with what YOU know is real, in this godzillaless world, but the movie’s internal logic is sound. Which seems is something you don’t seem to get a grasp on. Here’s a little secret: It’s all made up! All of it! They ground it on something that resembles reality but no part of it is. Yes, it gets pseudoscientific, but much more serious and ambitious projects have gotten science wrong and that doesn’t make them a bad movie as you seem to be so obsessed to prove (Gravity and Jurassic Park to name a couple). This movie doesn’t even dwell in the science all that much, you’re only fixated on it! Now, if you head down to http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.9015

You can read an actual scientist complain about the lack of science in the movie. You’ll notice he never complains about whatever you feel is unscientific. Because he knows what he’s talking about. Also, he was able to enjoy the movie. Inaccuracies and all.

They lack reasons for being in places. You keep mentioning that. What reason is missing? Yes, we need them to be in places, but they don’t just randomly appear there! You are given reasons for all of it. Kickass in in Japan to meet with his dad. Then in Honolulu transferring flights. The kid is in the bus evacuating the city, which is stated. Olsen girl stays to wait to the last minute for Kickass. What isn’t stated? Please tell me what isn’t stated.

Are you serious? He sees Heisenberg has the same patterns printed 15 years before, and he needs to choose people to investigate what just happened, why is it so unreasonable to pick them?

Is the dialog great? No. Are the characters well rounded and interesting? Nope. Does this means the movie sucks? No. It can be a detriment, but no, it doesn’t necessarily mean the movie sucks. In the end, the whole point of the human characters is that they’re insignificant. Again, the flaws you think you’re pointing out are invalidating the movie.

He looks the part, but has the screen presence of a fart in an F-5 tornado.

Striker, Ted

It may have something to do with Sam Raimi being an actual director, and not beiing Brett Webbner or whoever directed Amazing Spiderman, in fact he’s almost good enough to make whats-his-name likable like he did in “Oz the Great and Powerful”.

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

you have no idea

Cathrine Jhones

I’d love this movie in adult parody like http://bit.ly/newsfaud now a days it is the trend in porn industry to make any movie XXX parody.

The Summer of George

Yes. Fuck Puff Daddy. That goes without saying.
However, this hell-spawn was conceived strictly for use in the ’98 Godzilla fun fest and would not have existed otherwise, most likely.
Therefore, I stand by my original temper tantrum.

The Summer of George

(23:34)… You’ve never seen Mike more pleased with himself.

omitted

It takes one to know one?

Epifanes

I have not seen a train wreck but I’ve seen the first ten minutes of a couple of Emmerich films. I had no difficulty turning away.

I did finish watching Independence Day but only because the “human” “characters” in the movie were so obnoxious they made me root for the aliens. To my disappointment mankind survived.

Well, I’m no expert on Godzilla. I do dimly recall from watching those movies as a kid that Toho tried to make it more of a “character” as the movies wore on – a sort of anti-heroic monster-fighter protecting people from other monsters for… well, whatever contrived reason. It was never quite a “person”, but they tried to personalize his rubbery fights in a certain way.

In the original Godzilla movie, though, I recall the monster was just an obstacle – a force of nature to be overcome by people (much like Jaws, much like Alien). I think it’s really all about the personal versus the impersonal. The shark isn’t a person. It does what it does because of its animal nature, the basic will to survive and grow. When it eats Quint (SPOILERS), it isn’t because it hates him; Quint’s just more meat. Or, at least, that’s the best we can assume about the shark’s motives. But when Frankenstein’s monster murder’s his maker’s bride, we know very well its motives. We know the monster is also a person, and that his need to hurt Frankenstein is personal. Frankenstein’s monster is an antagonistic character.

I don’t think whether something’s a character is a function of how much we like it, or whether or not it drives the plot. For instance, human heroes rarely ever drive a plot; plots are usually about heroes reacting to external adversity (i.e. “The bad guys are doing something. We have to stop them!” or “The storm is going to wipe out the island. We have to save everyone!”). If they’re written and performed strongly enough, we can connect with them. We can also connect with villains if they’re written/performed strongly enough, but they have to have the kind of complex motivations unique to human beings in order to empathize with them. In other words, if we can’t imagine ourselves *being* them, they aren’t characters.

For instance, I think an edge case might be the queen alien from Cameron’s “Aliens”. It’s not quite a character IMO, but it’s riding the edge of being one, even without saying a word of dialogue. All of its actions could be ascribed to base natural instinct (for self-preservation, for protection of young). But after it sneaks aboard the ship, the way it’s presented allows some room for us to model its mind. We can potentially see hints of “revenge” in what it’s doing, and humans know all about revenge.

So, for me its really complex, human motivations like love, vengeance, grief, hope, regret, ambition, resolve, etc. that make someone (or something) a character. It’s true there are non-characters that we like for various conceptual reasons (I really liked H.R. Giger’s interesting alien design, for instance), but I don’t think that’s the same kind of empathic connection we make with characters.

castlemonster

Stupid popcorn-eating cows…

omitted

I haven’t even got my Master(bator)s yet!

Percy Gryce

Damn, a year or two ago when I was on one of my Goodwill runs for the boys, I saw a whole stack of Toho Gozilla VHSs. Why I didn’t grab them at 25¢ each I do not know.

Percy Gryce

Buzz Aldrin in From the Earth to the Moon.

Epifanes

Since I prefer to remember her from what is still her best performance,
the child vampyre in Interview with the Vampire, that gif makes me feel
very uneasy.

They grow up so fast…

LelouchtheFilial

I will comment again to acknowledge your comment.
God, I suck at this.

The Summer of George

Sadly, I can still remember seeing Godzilla ’98 in the theater and shouting with drunken rage at the hapless characters on-screen to: “POISON THE FISH!!”
But they didn’t listen.

Percy Gryce

“Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”

So Jaws does have something to do with Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla.

Percy Gryce

“That’s Voyager, dude.”

Martín Galarza Flores

It’s curious they mention the cartoon TV show. It was way better than the movie it was based on, ironically.

For those of you who don’t know, it revolves around the characters of the movie finding the Godzilla offspring of the end of the movie, and it becomes their ally when it fights other monsters and stuff.

That Godzilla (its name its Zilla Jr. People claimed Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla took the God out of Godzilla, so Toho officially named that monster Zilla, and its offspring it’s officially called Zilla Jr) is a way better representation of the classic Godzilla. Not that it matters, but it had the atomic breath. It was really, really cool.

Overall, the series was just better. You could actually tell what was happening, and somehow you care about it. It wasn’t great, but it was good.

Percy Gryce

I think it’s better to watch it on a binge. I think I watched Seasons 1-3 that way and then the rest in real time. It loses something with the long waits in between.

Percy Gryce

Love Boorman’s Excalibur. Of course, all the big things are great, but I often think about the little details like how he turned Excalibur into the Sword in the Stone. Brilliant.

WrongWithYourFace

Any spoilers I may have read have been wiped from my memory because I have been genuinely uninterested in the show. The fork in the brain helps too.

Percy Gryce

It’s a premium on patreon.

WrongWithYourFace

Are you serious?

Percy Gryce

Hey, @mitchelltaconash:disqus, tell him how if you had a rock-hard boner your fist wouldn’t be pumping in the air.

Domo_Konnichiwa

See, I almost look at Quint being eaten beyond something primal. If Jaws was just looking for a food source, he would simply stick to cute kids and chicks on the shore. If one shore dries up, he’d just go to another shore. With the boat scene, it becomes a battle of wits to me-who’s smarter, who’s stronger in this battle. The purely primal aspect of the shark is taken away, especially when you have Quint’s speech fresh in your mind. There’s something beyond “I need to eat” with the Jaws ending that takes the shark beyond plot device and into a character for me.

I guess using Jaws as a argument doesn’t quite work, and I’m sorry for bringing it up. My main point was that people went to see this Godzilla movie because it had Godzilla in it. People saying “I wanted to see more Cranston” kinda frustrate me, because using a popular actor right now in a monster movie takes away from the monster. I didn’t go see Jurassic Park to see Sam Neil or Laura Dern. I went to see dinosaurs. If Sam Neil’s character was instead Tom Cruise, I’d be really annoyed because Tom Cruise becomes the main focus. It’s kinda like when RLM got mad because Martin Sheen/Sally Field were uncle/aunt for the Spiderman reboot. They took focus away from me just enjoying the characters.

Mendoza

It was the most expensive US military recruitment video since War of the Worlds

Percy Gryce

Mike’s comment about their trying to keep Godzilla ’98 bottled up in New York made me think that that is not an uncommon plot line. Escape from New York and The Avengers 1 used that too. Any others?

Just got back from this — too self-serious, slow-paced, stuffed with bland and charmless characters. Cranston’s the only one who had any energy, and I agree with Mike- once Cranston’s gone and we’re stuck with boring blue eyes, the party was over. The guys mentioned Cloverfield, and that’s a fun monster movie. There needs to be a happy medium from satan incarnate that is Bay’s movies and these dull exercises in trying to dress up a cool monster movie in the “human element.”

Mike– Dismissively stating that this interview sucked with no real explanations of his opinion.
Not a constructively critical or informative comment, Mike.

kenchun24

Nah…most Michael Bay flick’s take the cake regarding “jingoistic U.S. military porn” from that observation. He has a direct line with the Pentagon’s Hollywood offices. If anything, G14 showed the military was just as insignificant/ineffective as most puny humans, right alongside all the Toho Showa era Gojira “scale model military might”.

WarMachineDD7

You guys should release the raw footage of Rich Evans watching Godzilla so that we can all have our very own Rich Evans to watch movies with.

Percy Gryce

It’s playful or tongue-in-cheek, but I wouldn’t call Tremors a comedy.

kenchun24

Yo Mike & Jay, good pros & cons review. While I do understand the main detraction’s for Godzilla 2014, I
still dug the flick wholeheartedly. Yes, Cranston and the underused
Watanabe would’ve probably been a more effective team of “audience
avatars” over Johnson’s vanilla “Ford Brody” to follow the three forces of
nature. But I also think there would have been only so much they could
do. I saw Ford Brody as the logical (for sure convenient) avatar for the audience to get up
close (via his military specialty and access) with the MUTO’s &
Godzilla during the tracking of all three.

Still, the
majestic/iconic Gojira imagery, the awe of all three daikaiju (I loved the MUTO designs), the
excellent sound design and looming presence of The Big G totally had me engaged in-spite of the puny humans. I’m also a fan of Gareth Edwards’ first low budget 2010
flick Monsters which has some similarities in tone to Godzilla, maybe
not executed as well as his first feature (script mainly perhaps?). But
he got Godzilla right, and you can tell he drew inspiration from Jaws,
Alien & Jurassic Park with the “less is more” approach which I find
refreshing in this day and age. Where the usual nonstop “crash boom
bang” CGI spectacle gets tiresome mostly (*cough Man of Steel cough). Also with the divisive reaction for G14, around many review sites/YT etc… you can sort of tell difference
between the Baby Boom/Gen X moviegoer vs. Millennial Gen folks who want
everything “now now now, more more more!” etc.

For me, this ’60s
to early ’80s daikaiju/giant mecha fan has been in movie heaven the past
two summers with Pacific Rim & Godzilla. So I’m happy with Del
Toro, Edwards and Legendary’s efforts regarding the genre’s revival.
They have done well IMO.﻿ Thanks for the refresher on GINO ’98 as well…still the only movie I ever fell asleep in, like literally crashed out horizontally, in an near empty screening.

Percy Gryce

As Harry S. Plinkett implies, it is a better told story than any of the SW prequels.

Mendoza

you’re probably right, i just hate all that BS comraderie, the bedroom eyes between people in uniform. Just make a sequel to Triumph of the Will and get it over with America!

Striker, Ted

Fuck you Rick Berman…McCallum.

stryker1121

The monster stuff was cool, but there needed to be more of it, and earlier in the film.

Striker, Ted

That one is best consigned to the ash heap of history.

WrongWithYourFace

There’s one Mike too many on this webzone. I’m confused easily.

Mendoza

I think that happy medium was Pacific Rim but it is not perfect

Striker, Ted

Nono, fuck Jimmy Page most of all.

LelouchtheFilial

I curse the commonness of that name!

WrongWithYourFace

I should have known better. Now how do I get rid of this boner produced by false stimuli?

Akka Fakka

Wow. I did not notice that this was the same director as Monsters.
Wow. Monsters was a fucking terrible film.
Wow. I can’t believe Jay liked Monsters.

Percy Gryce

It’s like one of those ads you see in Internet comments has come true: “You can make $6,000 per month working at home.”

stryker1121

To me Pacific Rim had the same problems as this new Godzilla, starting with the boring lead.

Percy Gryce

Rewatched Ronin recently. Moar please.

Percy Gryce

But he’s into that Crowley sex magick.

Or is that what you were saying?

Chris

Offing Cranston’s character early was a regrettable decision. I liked a lot about the film, though. I remember seeing Godzilla ’98 as a kid and having ‘that’ moment – you know, when you see something that you know is awful for the first time. I just needed this movie to be competent. And in that regard, it was successful.

Vinny’s TweetMachine

Jay shouldn’t shave, but Mike really should. I’m goddamn right.

Elsa

I used to do TaiBo. anyone else?

son of pluto

100% with Jay on this one

Aurini

Godzilla 1998 had its flaws, but you have to admit that its cast was far more characterized than those on Jurassic Park; Grant, Hammond, Malcolm, they were all basically interchangeable, nothing but meat pockets for the raptors. At least in Godzilla you had a couple of character arcs, and everybody stood out as a distinct person.

omitted

Contact M. Night Shyamalan?

Domo_Konnichiwa

Don’t let Omitted know, or you’ll have even more issues to sort out!

http://www.youtube.com/jimmyhapa jimmyhapa

My god Rich Evans’ laugh is infectious!

omitted

Who summoned me and why?

Pa Kent Says Maybe

I call bullshit.

Neither one of these movies is any good. Maybe they’re both bad for different reasons, but they’re both as bad as each other.

But, they’re Godzilla movies. Has there ever been a good one? I know, I know, there are fanboys right now screaming Gojira! Gojira! Aw, shut up. Maybe it was conceived as an anti-nuke allegory, but it’s a painfully silly and trivializing allegory. Always has been.

I get it. You all want to think you’re smarter now than you were in 1998. You’re not. You got to these movies in droves. They are all crap.

By the way, Mike…Can’t do a good Giant Monster movie? Well, you’re right, Hollywood probably can’t, but THE HOST (Gwoemul) from 2006 by Joon-ho Bong is exactly the kind of movie you are describing as “can’t be made.”

GODZILLA (2014) is painfully lousy. And, in sixteen years we’ll all be snarking on it, too.

After Earth – 244 million
Last Airbender – 320 million
The Happening – 163 million
Lady in the Water – 72 million
The Village – 257 million
Signs – 408 million
Unbreakable – 248 million
6th Sense – 673 million

1 financial bomb in his entire career.

http://www.plasticpals.com/ Robotbling

You can’t be serious. Grant was the stoic paleontologist eager to learn if his theories were correct, Malcolm was a womanizing hipster chaos theorist who was against the idea of the park from the start, Hammond was the old rich guy with good intentions that spiraled out of control, plus you left out Ellie Sadler who had some good heroic moments, the blood-sucking lawyer who just saw dollar signs, the two-faced programmer Dennis Nedry, and the two kids (who, amazingly, didn’t ruin the movie like kids usually do). Jurassic Park is leagues ahead of Godzilla 98 in every respect, it’s a goddamn modern classic.

Vinny’s TweetMachine

The old Godzilla movie with its “dumb rubber costumes” from 1954 is only “charming” (Jay’s words) because it’s now 59 years old. At the time, it was terrifying and amazing. The 1998 and 2014 versions were/are visually amazing and frightening to people them if you take them into the chronological context. Okay, maybe Emmerich’s movie was shitty at the time, but you get the point. (In 1954 though Emmerich’s movie would have been AMAZING).

The Summer of George

NOOOOO!!!! YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH!!!!

Domo_Konnichiwa

I don’t even know why they included that bit in there, except that the bombing occurred in French Polynesia. Like, if they specifically said Bikini Atoll islands, would Bikini-clad women want to right the wrongs of their home island?

Terrorantula

You guys burn so much plastic, not scared about the cancer?

Vinny’s TweetMachine

LOL Rich is channeling pure Comic Book Guy at 15:18. I like that very much. There should be 5 minutes of Rich minimum in every HitB. Make it a rule.

http://www.plasticpals.com/ Robotbling

I don’t know about that… the world had seen stuff like the original King Kong decades earlier which pioneered way better monster effects. I don’t really see your point about Godzilla 98 amazing audiences from the 50s, as you could say the same thing for just about anything (eg. an Atari would amaze people in 1954, and television commercials with cg effects would too).

The Summer of George

I heard it has Hep C.

Vinny’s TweetMachine

My point that a new thing (as you say with reference to “Atari would amaze people in 1954, and television commercials with cg effects would too”) would amaze folks from decades ago feeds into my point about cultural context in the specific point in history. It’s to do with my point regarding Jay thinking that the 1954 movie was “charming” for its “dumb rubber costumes”. Anything from that long ago looks lame now, so can you really dismiss it condescendingly with “charming” because now it’s 2014 with (relatively) insane visual effects? Also the movie audiences of 1954 Godzilla were hardly infinitely more jaded with visuals than the 1933 audience for King King. The pace of change in realism were slower. Plus you had the added aspect of King King being American and Godzilla being from Japan and the divides that existed them. Remember the goddamn and the goddamn nukes!

Domo_Konnichiwa

Lelouch said he sucks at this. This must subliminally mean homoerotic tension. Time to pounce!

LelouchtheFilial

This episode has reaffirmed both my mancrush on Bryan Cranston an my mancrush on Jay.
Oh, Jay… I’m sorry I ever thought of you as the “other guy.”

Mark Bisone

Let’s be real; 1954’s Gojira/Godzilla was not state-of-the-art, crowd-wowing special effects in its time. “Kong” was more visually convincing, and it was twenty years its junior. And Ray Harryhausen was doing far more complex and interesting effects while a guy in a rubber suit was stumbling around a cardboard Tokyo set.

It’s a seminal film, in some ways, but that has more to do with its cultural cache than its cut-rate visual effects.

Vinny’s TweetMachine

Wow though. Rich really is like “blue collar nerd” in all the clips for this, it really is the best. There should be a segment called “Taxi Driver Nerd Who Knows what the Fuck Is Really Going On in the City” segment, in every HitB review.

The Summer of George

Dear, Red Letter Media and friends,
Why is there no Rich Evans series on this site, called: “That’s Rich!”??
(Drops mic)

spicollidriver

I disagree about the cgi: to me it looks “glued onto” existing footage nowadays.

spicollidriver

“[…] there are not many new character movies being made anymore […]”

I guess you are talking about big Hollywood films? because otherwise, you are wrong.

Liz Frazier

“Don’t go watching this movie to see lots of Bryan Cranston.”

Thanks for the warning. He was a good 70% of the reason why I wanted to see the movie.

omitted

I always thought of Jay as the eye candy

stelajohnson1984

Phil Robertson can say whatever the hell he wants. This is America and people have died for that freedom to be able to say what you want. Any moron that has a problem with it can go to a country where free speech isn’t valued or guaranteed by a http://bit.ly/joyreactors

Liz Frazier

…?

jaymanxyz2

One thing that I found funny in the film was that they actually showed them zipping up Bryan Cranston’s body bag. It’s as if they were telling the audience: “Yep, he’s really dead, and this image may or may not be a visual metaphor of the rest of the movie that does not include Bryan Cranston.”

Kenlin Bros

As much as I disliked the film, I thought that the point of the nuclear blast, regardless of the size of the bomb, was that it was not going to kill Godzilla, but that it was just the military freaking out and resorting to their most basic instinct of blowing it up with the biggest thing they had, science be damned!

They were going to blow up San Francisco and kill millions of people because they felt that they had to do something, not because it had any chance of working. Shut up, Ken Watanabe! We haven’t gotten to use one of these nukes for 70 years, and they might have an expiration date!

Domo_Konnichiwa

I’m not even sure Raimi could save it without some re-writing. Maguire was kinda teased, but his real issue was being invisible to his crush and not knowing how to impress her. Garfield was quite literally assaulted and was interested in revenge before Uncle Ben even died. It just set the worst tone for the new movie.

Anthony Zombo

I don’t know. People were saying the Star Wars prequels were terrible when they first came out and people still think their terrible (except for Star Wars fanboys who will defend them because it’s Star Wars) All the prequels got lows scores. Episode 3 was the only one that got an average score from movie critics.

The Godzilla 98 got a worst score than Independence Day. I will agree the new godzilla movie wasn’t that great, but it was a lot better than Godzilla 98. I would say Godzilla 2014 is average at best.Human plot starts off good then completely dies after Bryan dies.

Godzilla 2014 5/10 (At best)

Godzilla 1998 2/10 (At best)

Guest

The “And Rule”:

If a super popular and/or critically acclaimed actor is billed as “and ” that actor is going to die within the first half of the film (esp. in action movies).

Learned this the hard way with Steven Segal and “Executive Decision.”

Mechagucha

I didn’t get the impression Jay specifically meant the original ’54 “Godzilla” but the later, cheesier ones. That clip looked ’70s.

As to the original, if you haven’t seen ゴジラ in its de-Burred state, it does feel quite different. The Hollywood inserts not only break up the plot and characters badly, some of the dubbing seems deliberately ludicrous.

Keep in mind that the film was made for audiences who had watched Japan’s cities systematically burned to the ground a mere ten years before. That sensibility does come through, though it’s much weaker in the second and then vanishes entirely.

Guest

The “And Rule”:

If a super popular and/or critically acclaimed actor is billed as “and [actor name]” that actor is going to die within the first half of the film (esp. in action movies).

Learned this the hard way with Steven Segal and “Executive Decision.”

Kenshiroh

Although RLM’s review would be good, I’d rather they not give Adam Sandler money.

I call bullshit on YOUR bullshit. Don’t try to pass opinion for fact, when the whole point of their review is to give their opinion on the two films. Their “job” is not to reaffirm what YOU think, especially since they have elaborate the good and bad stuff. In the case of Godzilla (’98), they elaborated the bad and worse of THAT film.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Cloverfield, Jurassic Park, 28 Days Later, any Holocaust movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Drunken rage in the theater? I guess it’s OK concidering the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Yea, I know. That’s why I was curious. If Godzilla took a strole in another town.

Domo_Konnichiwa

CHECK YOUR FACTS.

ronin122

Whatever the fuck you’re smoking, share the wealth okay? Don’t give two shits what you think about some old redneck bigot but way to be completely off topic.

ronin122

I’m more partial to the future MILFS of the Dance of Birth myself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Misa soli

Domo_Konnichiwa

Don’t tell the spammers that. It makes them even more aggressive.

Stardog Champion

I thought it meant his career just got flush in the toilet. In other words he’ll be playing in crappy movies like “I Frankenstein”.

sepiajack

I actually thought Cranston’s acting was pretty terrible, but otherwise I more or less agree with Jay and Mike about this film. It gets the crucial things very right, but the main character is a flat line.

They didn’t mention Ken Wanatabe at all, but I thought he was the one human character that really worked.

Mark Bisone

I don’t give a fuck about its social sensibility (which is debatable, too; Japan’s cities weren’t “systematically burned”… though they would have been, were it not for Hirosima and Nagasaki). The guy up there was talking about visual effects and their ability to “amaze” audiences of a given era. I’ve seen both versions of the original Godzilla film; neither “amaze” compared to contemporaries like “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”.

They look a little crappy, actually, even in retrospect. It’s largely just an actor in a obvious rubber suit, shot at a completely flat angle while he kicks around cardboard buildings. It’s wasn’t an Ed Wood level of cinematic dogshit, but there were far more visually impressive films at the time, both in the East and the West. If you want to see a visually compelling Japanese film of that era, try “The Seven Samurai” or “Gate of Hell”. Cheers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Was that George Lucas or JarJarBinx?

sepiajack

Also I’m curious what Mike didn’t like about Stargate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Stupid comment system making you look stupid……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Oh no we won’t!

Captain Turbo

I have this mental picture of whenever Hollywood producers read a script with a Japanese male character they shout “Let’s get Ken Watanabe!”

Jose

It was an awesome summer film indeed, for me at least. I understand why many people didn’t liked it. But man, there are some really snobbish comments in here.

jaymanxyz2

I thought Ken Watanabe was great.

Concerned Citizen

This is such a wonderful, elegant yet simple, idea. Kudos.

Stardog Champion

Hey what happen to the comic book guy and the Horse Ninja Comic? Did Mike and Jay stop the evil comic book guy from selling the comic rights to Michael Bay? CONTINUITY ERROR!

Concerned Citizen

Thank you for sharing!

jaymanxyz2

If they get a brain aneurysm as the result of this review, can they hold the filmmakers responsible?

Pa Kent Says Maybe

I call bullshit on your bullshit and raise you a “don’t tell me what to do.”

I was gonna go with an “Aw, fuck off,” but I’m holding that in case you don’t fold.

RugbyStu

Its weird when I saw the 90s Godzilla as a kid I freaking loved it. There is still a part of my brain that fills with nostalgia and because it never took itself seriously at all it was very light hearted it puts it in the realm of “goodbad” for me personally.

Thanatos2k

That’s because in Tremors you SORTA were hoping the characters would die.

LelouchtheFilial

G-gah! I-I’d like to have sex with you, Domo!
Phew… not-gays established, just in time.

Thanatos2k

I knew it was shit even as a kid.

Thanatos2k

Twist ending – after they all band together to rebuild the town Godzilla walks through again and redestroys everything. Cut to black.

Thanatos2k

Seriously. The flimsy plot was an excuse to move from one fighting scene to the next, which is what you were there for.

With Pacific Rim, unlike Godzilla, you got lots of fights spaced evenly throughout the movie. With Godzilla, you had to wait, and wait, and wait….

Mechagucha

I will admit that my remark was something of an aside to the special effects discussion, but in part that’s because I don’t think “Gojira” was particularly meant to be a dazzling effects movie.

“Japan’s cities weren’t “systematically burned”… though they would have been, were it not for Hirosima and Nagasaki)”

From the wiki on Curtis LeMay:

“Precise figures are not available, but the firebombing campaign against Japan, directed by LeMay between March 1945 and the Japanese surrender in August 1945, may have killed more than 500,000 Japanese civilians and left five million homeless.[14] Official estimates from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey put the figures at 220,000 people killed.[12] Some 40% of the built-up areas of 66 cities were destroyed, including much of Japan’s war industry.”

Actually, had Japan not surrendered after Nagasaki, the handful of further bombs were tasked with hitting the invasion beaches in Kyuushuu.

Which is an aside to an aside.

Thanatos2k

Not gonna lie, I was expecting Rich Evans to come rushing into the room with a fire extinguisher in the beginning while they were burning the Godzilla DVD.

Otto Torrens

Why would I want that?

Thanatos2k

That’s a lotta poison.

Striker, Ted

I haven’t even watched the whole thing, and have no interest, I flipped it on HBO one day and it is just lifeless, checked out real quick. Andrew Garfield is a flatline.

Thanatos2k

From the first trailer I knew that this movie was going to have too much boring human character idiocy in it.

I see random people praising this movie online saying how people “HAVE” to see it, and they always invariably praise the stuff at the end. No mention of anything before that.

So I’m guessing whether you like the movie or not is predicted on how much of the boring garbage in the middle you can stomach before it gets to the good part. Mike could take it. Jay could not. Meanwhile Rich Evans suffered for our sins and watched the other movie.

vile

Ken Watanabe just stood there with a scared/awefilled look on his face in every damn scene. I thought he was really dry.

vile

I thought the exact same thing really. I mentally went “uh oh” and checked the time remaining in the film. Then I started getting depressed knowing what was to come.

GFan1985

“STOP LIKING WHAT I DON’T LIKE, MY OPINION IS FACT”
No, YOU shut the fuck up.

SuperYuriGagarin

That Godzilla 98 Animated Series was about a hundred times better than the movie.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I wonder sometimes if Garfield would work better as Parker if the tone was different. However with Amazing Spiderman 2, Parker isn’t really that important since the movie acts as a jumping off point for 2 other franchises. It’s so easy to checkout either way.

Plus he pretty much nailed the Side Characters; they should just have J.K. Simmons be James Jonas Jameson in every Spiderman Movie from now on. I mean, come on, you reboot series to improve upon them (no you do it to make money but ideally you’d want to improve), so why throw out everything? Just keep making the movies, and keep all the best bits when you reboot!

sciencemile

They only hired him because of the name.

Morris

I agree! Also, Thanatos from Secret of Mana rules! Dat boss theme…

Jake H

I just watch them anyway. Chances are pretty good that by the time I see the movie I will have forgotten it anyway.

sciencemile

Shia Lebouf is a completely different Animal; he’s a former Disney Channel Child Star. Worse than that, he’s a former Disney Channel Sitcom Child Star.

To Shia Lebouf someone, you have to take an untalented child, throw a laugh track over him for 10 years, and then throw him to the wolves of Greater Hollywood still thinking he got work with Disney because he possessed some innate talent or skill.

Sorry Shia, you didn’t get work with Disney. You got work with Disney Channel…Disney Channel after the best cartoons got replaced by shitty sitcoms like Even Stevens…SHIA.

Chris Webb

I went to see it and enjoyed most of it because I went to see a monster movie. Which is exactly what it was. I didn’t care about the acting because I expected it to be flat.

Alex Lee

“What a plothole!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Aaah! I’m insane with anger!

sciencemile

They should tho <_< just post full unedited stuff on Patreon Premium content. That'd totally get my money.

Alex Lee

Eh, they’re too much into that feminist bullshit that says that grooming is unimportant.

Steven Simmons

I loved Godzilla. I went to see it twice, both in IMAX. Great film. I liked the human stuff and felt it was contextually appropriate to the film and the events being witnessed.

MrFahrenheit2k

FUCK. I’ve never thought of it.

MrFahrenheit2k

Godzilla man gets his

Alex Lee

“I was yelling it at the screen in the theater!”

Harry S. Plinkett

LelouchtheFilial

Fuuuuck… FUUUUUUUUUUCK!

jaymanxyz2

Haha, that’s what made him so great.

econniff

Don’t know, but I’ll say – after being so familiar with the SG1 series, going back and watching the original was really weird. Like watching something that was simultaneously higher and lower budget than the show, had better and worse actors, and both a more and less shallow plot. If that makes any sense.

But ultimately, on its own, I think the only reason is stands out is because Kurt Russell did so few movies in the 90s. And the transforming pyramid.

econniff

It’s a spambot. They use a database of text gathered from random comments sections across the web and auto-reply to live threads, ending the post with a shortened url that directs you to whatever

Mark Bisone

Both the Eastern and Western theaters were “systematically bombed” in WW2. You want to see actual scorched earth policy? Look into an allied plan called “Operation Downfall”, which was the apocalyptic strategy we would have pursued if the Japanese didn’t throw in the towel after Nagasaki.

Anyway, your tendentious wiki-bullcrap aside, the discussion at hand was about visual “amazement”. In that regard. Godzilla was somewhat on the level of “Eeagah”, except that Godzilla never even deigned to appear in the same frame as his human enemies.

DooDooMcDoo

So epic. SoM was one of the greatest. I miss the old Squaresoft

GFan1985

I liked it for the most part. What was done well was done well enough for me. Too many cooks in the kitchen and too uninteresting of a lead onscreen brought this flick down. Hopefully sequels correct the issues.

DooDooMcDoo

Well, M Night Shabadoo did bring us Unbreakable, which was a great superhero movie before superhero movies ruined superhero movies.

mmmpepsi

Ok, so as soon as you said Godzilla only makes cameos in the movie I lost interest. I don’t know how many Godzilla or even monster movies in general you’ve seen, but the monster not being on screen for the majority of the movie happens a lot and in a lot of cases adds to the movie. At the end I felt like we got enough Godzilla and with more of it we may have gotten tired of him.

Also you say they cut to the news during the a lot of the monster fights. There were two fights, one at Hawaii when they do indeed cut to the news. The second one when they cut away with the doors closing is the same fight that’s happening when the HALO jump happens. I don’t know why so many people found that difficult to follow.

Mark Bisone

Man, oh, man… so, this is the first comment you’ve made in a whole year, and it’s to bitch about a Summer monster-movie review you half-watched? I’m starting to think Skynet-Joshua-Hal is already on the loose.

Dear RLM friends (both of you):

If I vanish for a year, then suddenly reemerge to defend “Grown-Ups 3″, please flag my account to death and tell my wife I mostly loved her.

hendrixisgod51784

I’ve never seen Breaking Bad.

Mechagucha

Jay made a point about the charm of Godzilla movies being in their goofiness (or words to that effect). That seems a perfect chracterization of the later films, which had become assembly-line Toho products with widely varying levels of cheesiness over the decades. Neither these nor the first were, in my opinion, meant particularly to be “visually dazzling,” which was my first point.

My second was that the original movie is doing something very different from the later ones, though its success or failure depends on the individual viewer. Of course, if one wasn’t aware how thoroughly devastated Japan’s cities were even prior to Hiroshima, then it may be hard to distinguish it from, say, “Godzilla vs Monster Zero.”

And that’s about all I can imagine adding to this rather pointless argument.

Toho did go for a Gojira cameo in the opening of the CGI-heavy “Always Zoku: San-choume no Yuhi” in ’07. The great thing about YouTube is that one can see it without having to sit through the rest of the movie.

FYI, I just saw an advert for Blended on this site. I’m just telling you in case you wanted to re-schedule your suicide pact.

Benzo

Ahh, Brian. You’ll always be Hal from Malcolm in the Middle to me.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

If you are referring to current independent films, I don’t really consider them dramas or character based films because they mostly deal with shock value; they are not real dramas. Anyone can make a movie with shock value, a character yelling at someone is not drama, neither is saying dialogue as fast as possible. Here is an example of a dramatic (emotional) scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5QEr0q9hjQ I really miss Michael Mann.

Also current horror movies containing very loud music or sound effects at certain scenes in the movie may make me twitch in my chair, but that doesn’t mean I was scared. It means my body involuntary reacted from the loud music or sound effects, something I could have easily reproduced at home, which would have saved me ten bucks.

The same thing can be said about current comedy movies. Most so-called “comedy” movies are not funny. These movies deal in bathroom humor or spoofs from another movie. I refer to these movies as dumb movies, not comedies.

So far, the only 2014 drama movie that qualified as a drama was 50 to 1. And that movie was okay, but it’s no Seabiscuit.

Big disappointment for me. wrote a long review on it but basically, boring characters, dumb plot relating to military and nuke thing, godzilla barely appears, only saving grace is halo jump and atomic breath

Steven Santana

also way too long

Its_So_Dense

Ken Watanabe never said, “All this intravenous stuff is no good for you, Godzilla. Stick to smoking”. Therefore, the movie is terrible, because reference.

Its_So_Dense

With any fortune, everyone who maintains that glimmer of “sequel hope” will refuse to pay to see the follow-up until it is beta-tested by idiots and “professional” critics alike. Actually, never-mind—the former far outnumber us and the latter are mostly Hollywood shills; so it seems that any manner of protest (silent or otherwise) would be ill-fated at best. *sighs*.

Most people are currently of the mindset that television has surpassed film in terms of the expected quality of storytelling, but I would like to disagree (to a certain extent). Television, be it good or bad, has always been an advertisement for itself. The film industry has done little more than reproduce this model on a grander (albeit dumber) scale. It’s essentially a form of mass mind control, if you really think about it. Funnier still is that television shows are now becoming placeholders for future film installments. Seriously? Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? It’s a commercial. If they actually wanted to make something good, they would just rip off the template(s) of “24” or “The Americans” or “Homeland” or, shit, even fucking “Alias”. In other words, not only is television an advertisement for itself, but both television and film have become advertisements for each other (franchise-wise)! Incestption! Bwaaah!

Still, your comment had nothing to do with the “well, Prometheus 2 will answer all of the questions from Prometheus 1″ nonsense—but I had to go on a tirade because I’m horny as fuck.

I went to see this today with my brother, and I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie in or out of a theater I was so bored by. I don’t mind if a monster movie tries to do something different and give us a more human side to the story. But if you’re going to try that, you need to make them at least passably interesting.

For all its flaws, I enjoyed Pacific Rim infinitely more than this piece of shit. There’s 10-15 minutes of monsters fighting in a two hour movie. I’m not the type of person to bore easily during a slow movie, but when I go see a monster movie, i want to see the monsters for more than a tenth of the movie.

Pretty much everything the humans do is irrelevant. All of their weapons are useless, so why the fuck did we spend so much time with them? All the characters were complete flatlines, so why should I give a shit if the family is reunited at the end? I wouldn’t have cared if they’d all died. It was just scene after scene of nothing happening. And then there were a couple times where the monsters are about to start fighting, and it cuts away. What the actual fuck? Bryan Cranston’s heart stops in the helicopter and right as he flatlines it cuts away, and we don’t find out until five or so minutes later that he died.

This movie needed more camp and more screen time for the monsters, or more interesting characters with things to actually do. There’s a scene where the guys at the Yucca Mountain nuclear site are trying to see where the monster has gone, and he puts his binoculars up to his eyes and scans the horizon. When he spots it, it’s fucking enormous, and clearly would have been visible to just his naked eye. I burst out laughing. I’m not sure if that was played for laughs, but the movie needed more schlock like that. Or like when Ken Watanabe delivers his “We call him…Godzilla” line with the dramatic pan-in on his face.

The last thing I’d like to point out is that even though I thought the HALO jump they did was cool, it was shot very similarly to that opening scene in The Two Towers when Gandalf and the balrog are falling. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but they looked very similar.

My God, seems like everything was done wrong in this movie. It’s like, they only know how to make one kind of movie, but they don’t want it to be predictable, so they just do random stuff like kill off the main character.

This may be kind of off-topic, but honestly, all I’ve ever wanted from a movie is for it to seem real. And when you don’t have a sense of reality in a movie, it just fails.

GFan1985

…so are you implying there’s something wrong with me for hoping a sequel will improve on the few problems I had with a movie that I liked? What do TV spinoffs have to do with anything? I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say here.

RoCr

“I am COMPLETELY out of ammo…that’s never happened to me before.”

Paulus Cañamonjas

The Host is a horrible piece of crap. When Mike started talking about “japanese scientists yelling in a laboratory”, I have the impression he was talking about that painfully silly movie, Godzilla ’54.

crispin

I could go with the whole argument of: “Haven’t you guys ever seen a Godzilla film before?!” but what really trumps that is that this was one hell of an entertaining movie. Godzilla is THERE throughout the entire film both visually and in tone. When someone says, “There’s not enough Godzilla in this film!”, they really mean: “There’s not enough monster on monster violence.” And that’s just a damn shame.

Derpship Down

26 minutes with no subplot? First time I couldn’t get through an episode.

Milkbot

I liked that the story was straight forward. It wasn’t particularly boring, just simple. It was easy to understand what each of the characters were trying to do.

But in the end all of that doesn’t matter, I’m just here for Godzilla.

David Farrell

I think the big fight scenes were well executed, and I was entertained, but the movie as a whole isn’t very good, because just as Jay says – the humans have no impact on the plot at all. Half the time, the monsters don’t even notice when they’re being shot at.

Imo, this movie would have been a lot better if they had centered the plot around Brian Cranston trying to figure out what Godzilla is, how to track it, how to stop it, etc.

redletterjay

Godzilla not being in it much isn the problem in and of itself. We address that in the discussion.

Booger

Autofellatio? I’ve never heard “sucked his own dick” put so eloquently.

Pa Kent Says Maybe

You must be thinking of the Stephanie Meyer piece of crap. Not the same THE HOST.

You realize, if Mike were talking about Godzilla (’54), he was complimenting? But I agree, Godzilla (’54) is silly. That’s my point. THEY ARE ALL SILLY. Man in suit stomping on balsa-wood. Hello? When you were eight you should’ve known that was dumb stuff. Remember the one where the giant turtle had jet engines in his shell-holes? So, you were eight. You hadn’t mastered math, but you weren’t a fucking idiot. You knew that’s not how turtles worked. Radiation, either. So, why oh why, if you weren’t an idiot when you were eight, would you have chosen to grow up and become one in your 20s, 30, or 40s?

Now it maybe more Nolan-y, and the pixels might be stomping on pixels instead of balsa-wood,but it’s just as silly.

Uncle Sporkums

That’s right, Jay. *Feel free to shoot me for overused catch-phrase*

Uncle Sporkums

Unsubscribed!

Meester Smeeth

Yeah, there are some really annoying things about Cloverfield, I always enjoy it though.

Meester Smeeth

It’s stylistically designed to be that way.
Good lord, it never ends.

TheDevineBeing .

What the name of the background music that plays throughout the beginning of the vid?.

Paulus Cañamonjas

Excuse me, I did not make my self clear.
In fact I was being kind of ironic about your comment. I don´t think Godzilla ’54 is silly, why would it be? Rubber costumes? Are Yoda and Greedo stupid and outdated? As “clumsy” as it probably looks (in our postmodern eyes), it has some creepiness, creativity and a great score. The message conveyed will never get old: “stop fucking with science and mother earth”. Plus, is not a bloody remake, although it takes elements from other sources of course.
Pretty much agreed with the turtle part as 60´s and 70´s monster movies are just nice bad movies, laugh material and not much else. Ultraman and Bioman fall in the same category, bad but extremely funny.
So…the idea of a monster crushing cardboard/pixel cities is stupid? Yes. But then, most fiction movies must be stupid too.
Thanks for listening and excuse my bad english.

Will_Z_Macht

God damn piece of shit Blip video player!!

Great video though, guys!

Will_Z_Macht

I thought that’s where it was going, too… but then the floor fell out on that plot thread…

Hudson_Hawk

Best episode in a long time, guys! Much better than the last one. It seems as the two of you enjoy this series much more when you can tie a new movie to the past somehow, as you did in this episode with the 98 Godzilla movie. You are great!

Domo_Konnichiwa

With Mike yelling Get The Fuck Out, even though he’s trying to be helpful.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I just come here to stare at your pretty avatar. Like a moth to a flame…

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

I can think of several things that are annoying in Stargate. For example, why don’t you watch Stargate again and count how many times the soldiers cock their guns?

Mechagucha

I was living in Japan when the ’98 “Godzilla” came out. One rumor I heard was that Toho decided to sell the rights for one film only–retaining the sequel rights–because the franchise had been declining in popularity. The story went that they couldn’t care less about the movie itself but were hoping that a Hollywood publicity campaign might drum up new interest, especially in the US market where the ’80s and ’90s Goji films never got the traction the ’60s and ’70s ones had had.

Oh, I posted this already, but down in a reply where it’s already buried. Toho also gave The Big G a cameo in an ’07 movie called “Always Zoku: San-choume no Yuuhi.” It was the second of a trilogy of sappy nostalgia movies whose main draw was recreating ’50s Tokyo with extensive CGI. Here’s its opening:

Well pretty much action film has the too much gun cocking in it, I’m hardly going to hold that against Stargate specifically. Directors & actors like to use that as a punctuation mark at the end of dialogue or before a cut.

I watched Stargate last year before starting the SG1 show, it’s not There Will Be Blood, but it’s fun little scifi action film, good early 1990s special effects, memorable score. Good location, etc.

I like it.

sepiajack

I actually get exactly what you mean, it some how manages to be inferior and superior to the show in equal measure.

sepiajack

Yeah but he delivered cheesy lines like ‘I call him… Godzilla!’ with perfect relish. and as the only main Japanese actor in the movie does a good job of keeping Godzilla’s homeland represented in the movie.

sepiajack

As a side note, from Mike’s love for Breaking Bad: I really wish I could get out of that show what virtually every other person who watches it seems to.

I thought that seasons 4 and 5 were a pretty great thrill ride. But seasons 1 and 2 to me are the definition of pretentious. I don’t really get why people find the acting and writing to be so good on that show. And yet it seems to be the only popular show I can think of with absolutely no dissenting opinions. Even something as popular as Game or Thrones has plenty of people who hate it (not me though).

I love The Wire, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Sopranos, and any other show that normally gets lumped in with the pedigree of Breaking Bad, I’m just really at a loss of what people see in Breaking Bad, which to me I would lump in more with 24 or Dexter, a suspenseful show with an interesting premise or gimmick.

Oh well I suppose its my loss.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Some boners just like to have their own cheering section.

Dr. Shazbot

In future episodes of Half in the Bag, is it possible you guys could maybe tell us where to skip to in order to avoid spoilers? I’m not going to want to watch a 25 minute review of a movie I’ve just seen in theaters, and I really find you guys entertaining in your other shows.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Okay, I agree with you on the score. Most of the composers of that era are long gone.

Domo_Konnichiwa

“That’s not an Uzi, Jay. It’s a fucking Tommy Gun!”

Spazzlepadazzle

Never! I’m saving that fiver for the new transformers movie, I’ll just watch Jack and Jill instead, two Sandlers for the price of one! What could be better!

Domo_Konnichiwa

Because nobody likes to be old.

sepiajack

Well if its a movie you want to see, why not just wait until after you’ve seen the movie to watch the review?

Sully

Maybe in foreign countries the language dubbing and/or subtitles help cover the shitty American acting?

redletterjay

We give the timecode to avoid spoilers in pretty much every episode that contains spoilers. In order to properly discuss this movie, we felt we would have to just give a spoiler warning right up front so we didn’t have to watch what we say.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

I don’t get it. If you’ve already seen the movie, why do you care about where the spoilers are? Most of the Half in the Bag movie reviews seem to be spontaneous. And, you are asking them to plan it? That is like asking Coke to change its original formula because you don’t like it burning your throat. In my opinion, they are doing just fine. Changing their formula would only cause it to lose fizz.

Sully

Trust me, Star Wars fanboys don’t defend the prequels. True Star Wars fans watched those movies once (maybe twice just to reaffirm their shittiness), and then placed them in the “Don’t exist in my reality” bin.

I haven’t seen the new Godzilla movie, but the 1998 film was shit when I saw it on opening night. It was released five years after Jurassic Park with DOUBLE the budget, and the special FX were half as good. How is that even possible?

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Hollywood doesn’t care about realism anymore. They only care about profit. Remember Man of Steel?

Sully

If I remember correctly Dr. Saddler was “Tenacious.”

Sully

I have to agree that Jurassic Park is the one CG heavy film that has held up over the years. The Matrix, Star Wars Prequels, LOTR, and Avatar all look dated now.

The brachiosaur rearing up on its hind legs and the way the actors respond to it in that scene is still one of my favorite moments in that film.

dollar store cashier wife

Elaborate on what problems you see in the writting/acting.For me when you sum BB up as a thrill ride I actually think that of Game of Thrones/Boardwalk Empire.

Dr. Shazbot

I haven’t seen the movie, and as such, I don’t want to see the spoilers. lol

Dr. Shazbot

Do you?! Where is that time code? I must be blind.

Also, I do always appreciate spoiler warnings. You guys are always good about that too.

Shortly after the 5:10 mark they announce that the entire review will be spoilers from that point on.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Dr. Shazbot said: “I’m not going to want to watch a 25 minute review of a movie I’ve just seen in theaters”

You were not clear. I watch these reviews before and after seeing movies. They are funny. If I’m going to see a movie, I avoid the internet until I’m finished watching the movie. I don’t understand why you are having a difficult time with this?

Mark Bisone

The visual effects of urban destruction weren’t any less cut-rate and cheesy looking in the original flick than they were in the reels and reels of “Godzilla vs.Somebody” flicks to follow. They did not look realistic. If anything, I’m guessing the people whose homes were actually destroyed probably thought they looked a little dumb, just as my grandfather, a vet of Saipan and Iwo Jima thought “Sands of Iwo Jima” looked a little fake and dumb (even though he liked the film).

In any case, Godzilla’s destruction wasn’t supposed to mimic a typical bombing campaign of the types seen in England, Germany and Japan. It was explicitly supposed to mimic the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The effects looked like they were rushed and not thought out. Probably because they were rushed and not thought out. Producer Tanaka had just lost his financial backing on a completely different project he was set to film in Indonesia. He still owed Toho a picture (some picture, any picture), so Tanaka said, “Hey, let’s rip off Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, set it in Japan, and call it an homage to the A-bomb’s victims.” He wanted more money for color film and Harryhausen-style stop motion effects, but Toho said “Fuck you, buddy. Put a guy in a rubber suit and knock over some toy train scenery.”

That’s the real production story behind “Gojira”, for what it’s worth. It looked mediocre-to-terrible, even back then. But the movie still did have its charms, mostly in the way it hurled simplistic, capital letter METAPHORS at the audience, like it was teaching a class on subtext to the functionally blind. As the years wore on and the stories got zanier, they lost a bit of that original, goofball, Ed Wood-esque sincerity, but became funny in their own right. I think that’s what Jay was saying; both versions of the monster were charming and funny, but for different reasons. And he’s right.

That’s about all I can think of adding to this pointless argument, too.

I think the CG from the LOTR films is better than the Hobbit movies. Some scenes of Gollum from LOTR are among the best CGI I’ve ever seen (imo).

The CG from the Star Wars Prequels was awful.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Red Letter Media’s staff seems somber because Hollywood movie crap is produced while independent films, struggle. I feel the same. However, RLM has inspired many people by proving that it is possible to beat the stomach-turning Hollywood click. Although I don’t agree with everything RLM does, I do like most of their work.

I hope RLM is doing well. Sometimes, I can’t tell if these guys are acting.

Navon Sensei

The both of you seem unmotivated to do this. I get the feeling you do it anyway to humor the audience or you feel forced to do it while you’re thinking about other stuff. The result is a pretty weak episode, in my opinion that’s on your regular technical level.

Navon Sensei

What does this have to do with Godzilla? Keep on topic or go discuss your feelings about other stuff somewhere else if you please.

Nick Z

War of the Worlds (2006) focused on one family as crazy chaos happens. What a art house film.

Mark Bisone

“But seasons 1 and 2 to me are the definition of pretentious.”

Weird. To me, the entire series is the definition of unpretentious. It’s a rarity in drama, these days – a meaningful morality tale with balls, humor, suspense and heart.

I’m not gonna pen a sonnet to it here, though; like you said, dissent is hard to find on this one. FWIW I enjoy Game of Thrones as a kind of weekly popcorn flick, despised Dexter, was bored silly by Boredwalk Empire, thought Sopranos was kinda lame, couldn’t give a shit either way about 24. The wife’s a big Mad Men fan, but I haven’t seen enough of it to form an opinion.

The Wire was… just okay. I guess that’s an example of a universally praised show that I just don’t get the massive appeal of. And I even used to live in Baltimore, around the time they were shooting “Homocide: Life on the Streets.” I did like that show initially (the first season was a classic, but the quality dropped off sharply from there). So, while I don’t get the Breaking Bad thing, I get the WTF-am-I-missing thing.

Its_So_Dense

These are the things that I write when I come home drunk from Animazement. Carry on.

nemo3590

I liked the movie overall, but was disappointed by the marketing. We were promised Heisenberg vs. Godzilla, but instead we got Call of Duty: Kaiju Ops.

sepiajack

Mike specifically brought up Breaking Bad, I was curious about how he would weigh in on Cranston and BB since his taste in movies is generally about 95% the same as my own. hearing him glow about it, just reinforced to me that I’m missing something about BB everyone else seems to be receptive too.

sepiajack

The characters are very one note, there is a lot of deus ex machina and lazy solutions to the crisis (I won’t get into spoilers for those who haven’t seen it) I mean mainly in seasons 1 and 2. The ‘big’ moment at the end of season 2 was just about the silliest thing I’ve ever seen in a show that is meant to be a serious drama.

The side characters are all pretty flat until the 4th season or so, one basic trait, and one basic bit of depth, ie: ‘Marie is the perfect wife, but she secretly shoplifts’

and until the later seasons I find Jessie to be Jar Jar levels of irritating.

Maybe it’s blasphemy, but I don’t actually think even Cranston’s performance is anything write home about in it.

Like I said though, about half way through season 3, whenever that episode about the fly stuck in the lab came about, that was what turned it around for me. I really liked that one, and from that point on really liked season 3, and I have no real complaints about season 4 or the final season.

Dr. Ryan

That wasn’t Kathy Griffin, that was Vicki Lewis from Newsradio

Travoltron

Boss Nass, why is it that you’re supposed to be a Gungan like Jar Jar Binks, but you look like totally different species of creature?

sepiajack

Thanks, and just to be clear I’m not saying this to be a dick, or try to take other peoples’ love for BB away from them. I’m just genuinely interested and befuddled by the overwelming praise this show gets, especially in this day in age where everything is maligned as garbage even when it IS good.

Well isn’t that peculiar.The Fly is pretty much the most(and perhaps the only) disliked epizode even by hardcore fans because it’s considered to be just filler.And like Mark Bisone noted BB is the very opposite of prententious I think.Those crazy silly moments(like S2 finalle)are just part of package-a serious drama at it’s core that can also be over the top pulp.I definetely think that is a part of the massive appeal of BB.

Billy Whitman

Talk about TV shows now!

Mark Bisone

Sure, I understand. It’s not your cup of tea (GET IT? SEE WHAT I DID THERE, JACK?).

The Wire is like that for me. That was a show where friends whose tastes generally align with mine were specifically demanding I see it – maybe because they knew I spent time in Baltimore, and remembered my colorful anecdotes about it. The wife even loved that show. I found myself trying to stay awake most of the time.

sepiajack

I think the Wire is for me a hair above Mad Men as the best show out there, its fifth season is a bit weaker than the rest, but I really love it, however I can see how it wouldn’t be for everyone because it is VERY dry, and does take a while to get into. I’m not really sure what watching that show as it aired would have been like, it definitely is one of those binge watch shows.

A bit off kilter from the rest of the list, but I also think Venture Bros is about as close to perfect as something can be.

Mark Bisone

I loved “The Fly”!

(But I loved them all, so that’s not saying much.)

Mark Bisone

“A bit off kilter from the rest of the list, but I also think Venture Bros is about as close to perfect as something can be.”

Agreed. Although I’ll probably pissing my adult diapers and ringing for the nurse by the time they put out a new season.

dollar store cashier wife

I love it too but there’s poetic justice I guess in that Rian Johnson is responsible for both the lowest and the higest rated BB epizode of the entire series.

sepiajack

Yeah I’ve heard that about The Fly, and that sort of speaks to the fact of how off the signal I am with everyone else about this show. To me that was the first time the show actually achieved the depth and artistry it was striving for up to that point.

By pretentious what I mean is I think it strives for high drama, and deep artistry (and certainly that’s how most people speak about it) but doesn’t actually have much in the way of depth. Like if Michael bay tried to make a deep art film. He might understand mechanically how to do that, but it would feel hollow. Or what Jay said about Roland Emmerich, he desperately wants to be making Spielberg movies, but he’s just the worst at it.

I’m also trying to avoid hipster territory of just hating on something because its popular. I genuinely want to love this show as much as everyone else, to be in on the fun. I will rewatch the whole saga at some point to give it another shot.

Mark Bisone

Whoa. Michael Bay? Really?

The interesting part is the thing you least seem to connect with is the thing the rest of us do: the characters (insert Plinkett voice). To us they are vividly drawn and miles deep. To you they are cardboard cutouts. I felt the same way about The Wire (mostly cardboard caricatures and implausible freaks).

Art is mysterious that way.

sepiajack

Well I use Michael Bay only because he has a very definite visual style but it’s kind of crass, and I just feel like no matter how great a script you could give him he would find a way to suck any of the humanity or nuance or depth out of it. Breaking Bad is not anywhere near as bad as a michael bay movie, but it feels to me like a cheeseburger trying to pretend it is fine cuisine. If its just a cheeseburger (like 24 or Dexter) then no biggy, its fine on that level. But I guess I just don’t see more in it than that.

And actually the characters I did really love on the show were Gus, Lydia, Mike & Todd, so that is part of why the later seasons I liked so much more than the first few.

sepiajack

I loved his movie BRICK, found his 2nd film Brother’s Bloom dissappointing, and felt 50/50 about Looper. I hadn’t made the connection though that he also worked on Breaking Bad.

Mark Bisone

” I will rewatch the whole saga at some point to give it another shot.”

Be interested to hear your thoughts if you do. My binge re-watching of the show has only deepened my already near-psychotic love for it. I enjoyed it better the second time around, when I already knew where it was going, which is rare for me in stuff that wasn’t written by Shakespeare. I kept picking up on details and rich subtext I didn’t quite catch the first time around. The true nature of Hank and Marie’s odd relationship, for example, is something that really stuck out to me on the second go-round.

dollar store cashier wife

he directed only 3 epizodes but somehow he was both responsible for the infamous “The Fly” and for unanimously loved “Ozymandias” .His movies are ok I guess.

Mark Bisone

What’s weird to me is Gilligan himself, knowing his roots in “The X-files”; a show I kinda like that didn’t really hold up for me (especially the later seasons). I’ve been watching some re-broadcasts lately and find it all very un-engaging. The soundtrack in particular is jarring and takes me out of it constantly.

Paulus Cañamonjas

Those final couple of lines= my problem with 90% of modern movies

dollar store cashier wife

From a bunch of interviews I saw of him(and the crew of BB in general))it seems like he just had a stroke of genius is all.Let’s not forget he also had a writter staff of like 8-9 people who shut down his more crazier ideas and improved weaker ones.

Paulus Cañamonjas

Mike would look great with a big moustache, 19th century style.

Mark Bisone

I meant no disrespect to him. It’s just hard for to draw connections from his previous work to this one. He definitely could have matured a lot as an artist in those interval years. And like you said, having a powerhouse cast, staff & crew and an accomodating producer/distributor like AMC certainly helped.

I will let you know once I do. To put in context my original viewing of BB was that a few years ago I binge watched Season 1, 2, and the first 4-5 episodes of season 3, and half way through an episode, and I just through up my hands and said “enough! I’ve had enough!’ because I realized I was only watching it because I felt like I was supposed to.

But with the final season on the horizon, and while I was off of work last summer, I picked it up again If for no other reason so I could be part of the discussion when the finale aired, for better for worse. So I started at the beginning of season 3 again and immediately began to regret my decision. But then i got to The Fly and was won over. I loved season 4, watched it in like 2 days. Ditto the first half of 5, and then watched the final 8 as it aired.

sepiajack

There is that X-Files episode DRIVE which is sort of the spiritual ancestor to Breaking Bad.

sepiajack

Interesting. What was his third episode?

sepiajack

Sometimes an artist is just the right fit for material. I don’t think Martin Campbell is anything special as a director in general, but he is great when making a 007 movie. Bryan Singer can be hit and miss, but (to me anyways) he’s absolutely the best possible person to be making X-men movies. He tried doing superman something he had much longer fan love for and it failed, but he’s ideal for X-men. Or Nicholas Meyer on Star Trek movies.

dollar store cashier wife

“Fifty-One”

Mark Bisone

Somewhat off-topic, but the way you watched it interesting to me, because the viewership numbers showed that this is generally in line the way a lot of people watched it. It was an inverse of the usual phenomenon (viewership gradually dwindling over the years). It was one of the few shows that made tremendous gains in viewership over time, with everyone playing catch-up and then watching the final season as it was broadcast together, just like old-fashioned TV.

There are a lot of mundane reasons for that, not least of which is the on-demand nature of content these days. People no longer have to watch *any* show as it runs… they can just wait for it to finish, then binge-watch the whole deal at their convenience. Happens with a lot of shows these days

The difference with Breaking Bad was the sharp upward curve in live viewership towards the end. Once people got caught up (whether it was in the third, fourth or fifth season), thereafter they just *had* to see the show live. They couldn’t wait. Whether you liked the show or not, you have to admit that’s some powerful mojo.

sepiajack

Oh absolutely.

dollar store cashier wife

One thing is certain-his unchallenged vision would have given us a bit different version of BB to say the least…

Plot device? I´rather call it “adversity”, or “big problem”.
I totally get your point, the comparison between a shark/monster and forces of nature, asteroids or whatever. But don´t forget, Jaws is a living being, same with the xenomorph. That´s the creepy thing, we don´t know if they have WILL, of some sort. The will to kill people for the sake of it. Cause the xenomorph didn´t need food at all, if I remember correctly, can´t remember if that was also the case with Jaws..
Also, and corcerning the point Domo has made, I think Jaws has something atavical to him. The deep sea, the darkness and helpessness, the big horrendeous monster eating a mere human (which is rooted in our prehistoric period). That fucker will stare at your eyes while opening his throat and eat you. It has a personal vibe to it, “man vs bear” style,if that makes sense. So Jaws it´s some sort of “character”, although there´s only one way to interact with him..
No wonder this movie made sea bathing terryfing to us..even swimming pools.

P.S: otherwise, I think you should write a book.

Mark Bisone

Yeah, good call on Meyer. It’s weird how little he’s actually written and directed in his career. The script for “Khan” in particular is I think was what Mike might call “a perfect script,” and it was something he stitched in twelve days under the studio gun. Art from adversity. I noticed he penned a script for an upcoming Canadian mini-series about Houdini, with Adrian Brody cast in the lead. Being a Houdini fan, I’m kinda curious how that turns out.

TapewormBike

Who the hell DOESN´T have a man crush on Rich Evan..I mean Bryan Cranston? Sorry, I get my boners mixed up sometimes.

Mark Bisone

Holy crap! Thanks for this one. It seems Gilligan’s generosity and willingness to accept criticism were central to his talents on the project. That’s a rare gift in the ego-driven entertainment industry, but interviews I’ve seen of him seem to line up with that image. He seems like a very humble guy.

It’s one of the little understood secrets of art (especially collaborative commercially-driven art like film and TV shows) that it isn’t the result of one singular “genius” realizing his “pure vision”. It’s something that gradually evolves, shaped along the way by happy accidents and spontaneous insights. It’s like a collective sculpture, with dozens of hands chipping away to discover the beautiful form hidden in the stone. It doesn’t mean it isn’t deliberate; it just means that it’s the process of a slow group deliberation that eventually finds the perfect shape. When a sole, egotistical “genius” takes tyrannical charge of a a production and its storytelling choices, the results are rarely good (although there are exception, like many of Hitchcock’s films).

Of course, this is an insight your husband Plinkett understood very well, and one his nemesis George Lucas didn’t understand at all.

http://macaulay559.deviantart.com/ Scottland559

I’m the only person in the world that thought that was funny and in character for Peter Parker. He was a dork, the black goo made him a mega-dork. Made sense to me.

Ses

that was a beatiful comparison

Meester Smeeth

I just want 55 minutes of Rich Evans talking about that Josh Holloway show, Intelligence, and how it’s a bit shit.

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

I usually don’t watch shows for the sake of time. So believe me when I say Breaking Bad is a must.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Godzilla is a whore mother from Texas.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Most HiTB episodes containing mixed reviews seem to be weaker than episodes where absolute love/hatred is expressed over a film. Even with reviews of films they love, they get to be nitpicking assholes because can only wax poetic about a film they like for so long.

I wished they carried through with their horse ninja storyline, but there are a few episodes where the script is skipped, and I can understand if they want a break from that work.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I like Gollum’s look in The Hobbit more, particularly because he’s much more expressive. Otherwise, The Hobbit looks so cheesy visually.

LOTR is another good example of a point made in the Titanic Review, where special effects were used lightly to enhance a scene, but sets and miniatures were the main focus.

Junkie

Anyone who is a “hardcore fan” of BB would NOT dismiss “The Fly” as filler. It is one of the most important episodes of the entire series and the whole thing is a metaphor for Jesse and Walt’s crumbling relationship. Everything about it is brilliant and subtle.

omitted

Now I get it: the trick in getting Jay to respond to you in the comments is to make a reasonable point or a valid question!

So… Uhm… Uhh… Ehm…. Let me get back to you on that

dollar store cashier wife

If only Harry understood marriage takes effort from both sides…but I better not start philosophing here and just enjoy the afterlife.

Mark Bisone

Nah. I think it’s because I flagged it as “suspicious”. It seemed fishy to me; I figured that someone who was in some way associated with the production hacked that dude’s old account.

omitted

So what you are obviously saying is that I should make my posts even more outrageous and stalkery so that someone would eventually flag them, right?

Daniel Nguyen-Phuoc

I was disappointed by the film. It didn’t seem to be able to decide between being a family drama disaster movie, or a schlocky monster fight movie.

Like, pick one and stick with it. The whole arc from Bryan Cranston was really well acted and emotionally engaging, and personally I found the footage of the tsunami to be kind of horrifying. Hits a little close to home for me.

But on the other hand, when the MUTO had an EMP, I couldn’t help but think “Now you need Gipsy Danger.” I went in determined not to compare it to Pacific Rim, but between the EMP and the Atomic Breath it was really hard not to.

Pacific Rim was a fun movie where robots fight monsters. This one felt like it alternated between wanting to do that, and wanting to be the director’s previous movie Monsters. And RLM established that going in the middle ground between schlock and realism isn’t really where you want to be.

Alien Ape Star

I just seen the new Godzilla movie in 3D and I agree with most of the comments from Mike and Jay but.. I noticed something was missing.

The whole movie rolled around the idea of this Godzilla as being a benevolent god that is actually protecting humanity. I thought that was a nice touch but did not make any sense at all. So these creatures are supposed to be really old, back from the time when earth was more radioactive and.. they eat radioactive materials?? Really? That sounds so silly it is beyond comprehension. Also, why is Godzilla “hunting” these creatures? We can see it is not the case of “supreme ultra alpha predator” because at the end, when the biggest monster is killed by Godzilla he does not eats it, he does not even takes a chunk with him swimming into the abyss. Also, we are told that these other creatures are somehow “parasites” which is pretty retarded because they are almost as big as Godzilla. Even if we would accept the idea of a world in the old ages waaaay before dinosaurs with even bigger creatures it still does not make any sense. For it to make any sense we would need to live in a world where the parasite is as big as it’s prey: a moskito as big as a cow, a tape worm as big as an anaconda etc.. Most of the biggest ideas in this movie do not make any sense at all. Sure, I liked it, the monster battles were awesome but even if I agree that to make a script for this kind of movie is pretty difficult you cannot have this many wholes in the story.. seriously. Also, the design of the creatures was awesome but not very well thought out for the “mots” or however were called. The Godzilla design seemed to pay an homage to the old movies it almost makes you remember the man in the suit designs but not in a funny or ridiculously cartoony way. Which was pretty good in my view.

What would have made this movie better:

1) To not kill of Heisenberg in the first 15 minutes, agreed with Mike and Jay.

2) No ambiguity as to the purpose of Godzilla: he is not a god, protecting humanity, he is just a hunter after its prey, would have made perfect sense to drag the body of his prey into the deeps like some over-sized alligator.

3) No retarded plot holes: for the love of god why transport a nuclear warhead via TRAIN??? it is not like they could not do that with a helicopter or an airplane because we see that a few times in the movie BUT NEVER WHEN IT WOULD HAVE MADE PERFECT SENSE
4) Why “store” the other “spore” next to the nuclear waste material? did they not know by now that they feed on radiation??
5) How did breaking open a water pipe or hydrant created that freaking explosion that took out the nest??
6) If you wanted a story about an alpha predator hunting parasites then make it freaking eat them and make the parasites smaller for god’s sake! In Cloverfield they shown dog sized parasites that fell of the creature! At least that made sense in terms of scale! Right? Never mind, the idea of an alpha predator hunting for parasites it’s even more retarded..
7) Hire a biology consultant. To throw a few big words like echolocation and showing mating habits, nesting and so on is not enough to make everything make sense biologically. An animal the size of a skyscraper cannot fly. And if it does it surely does not have limbs that bend like an insect, like it would have an external skeleton, that is a design flaw that propagated for years.. Sure the creatures look nice, but they are not biologically believable. The banshees and “Toruk Mak’to” from Avatar are very biologically believable because their design is done very well, respecting some rules of how nature works, even on another planet with a different gravity pull.

Mark Bisone

Yes. Live the dream, my friend.

Alex Lee

I would have to say that the protagonist starts off as a relate able man who is saddled by his impending doom, both financial and literal. His slow descent into corruption is so convincing because of his supposed altruistic belief in saving his family (which is a manly virtue that many unemployed men can relate to). Because the family largely consists of lower-middle class people who eventually must struggle to maintain the facade for their own self-preservation.

Then, there’s the striking imagery that happens at the climax of an arc, such as the melted body falling through the bathtub and crashing onto the floor below, or the half burned body of a man/stuffed animal, or falling into a port-a-potty when it can’t support his weight. These are all things that have, at least, been rarely done in film, and the weight these images carry resonate really well.

It’s very heavy on its themes of fear of poverty, pride, death, family, and irrelevance and all of those themes interlock with each other seamlessly into each other It’s why so many smart people like it so much, because there’s so much going on than this guy turning into an asshole.

Are you a daredevil? I dare you to see this .. CAUTION!! Not for people with weak hearts http://goo.gl/TjajJE

Mark Bisone

I didn’t click, but I am curious about you. Are you an actual human being or an A.l. computer babe like Scarlet Johannson?

If the former, how do I get a job doing what you do? How much does it pay?

If the latter, do androids dream of electric sheep?

Bhazor

I did love to see Mike getting all giddy at mentioning Bryan Cranston.

Bhazor

Spielberg, what a hack fraud.

Percy Gryce

@mitchelltaconash:disqus can help you with that–by giving you spoilers for X-Men: Days of Sequels Past.

Percy Gryce

The problem with that, though, is that one of RLM’s greatest strengths is their superb editing. Putting up raw, unedited footage dilutes their brand.

Percy Gryce

I actually had Totino’s Pizza Rolls for the first time last night. They tasted like ass.

Percy Gryce

I did agree with Jay about ID4. Never liked it.

And Stargate? Well, I thought it was okay. I thought the TV series–now the longest running sci-fi series in U.S. history–was weak. I did like Stargate: Atlantis or, as I like to call it Stargate: Deep Space Nine.

Stargate: Universe was the gritty reboot, but it only lasted two seasons. Of course, they kept the interesting series on for only two years, but they let the campy original run on for something like 17 years.

Lionel Bee

Season 2 had a pretty big narrative hook that borrowed some from the first season (which I thought was fairly straightforward). There tends be a divide over how that was handled, to the best of my observation.

The show really came into its own in season 3, but ratings were poor enough that the season 4 finale was made to serve as series finale if need be. Three major things contributed to its success, as far as I see it: the show was put up on Netflix streaming so it was easily accessible; the premise and plot were simple enough that a regular person didn’t need to trouble themselves with minutia for a rewarding experience; the loyal fanbase recommended the show whenever they got the chance.

It’s not really a mystery. Shows of the caliber of Breaking Bad tend to have a lot of characters and complex plots. Compare/contrast with Boardwalk Empire, a show I don’t think would’ve gotten the same success if it was put under similar circumstances.

KISS principle and all that.

Big McLargehuge

Honestly, I was with the movie up until the Honolulu staredown. There’s the human plot people don’t give a crap about but it set things up right. You get teaser shots of Godzilla, you got the introduction to MUTO (they both looked awesome btw) and they stomp on shit so you don’t like ‘em, the scientists throw around information that makes no sense as an excuse to get Godzilla and MUTO to face off and beat the crap out of each other. And then mMUTO and Big G face off against each other at the airport, you get the slow upward pan to ‘zilla and he gives off the roar, and you’re thinking awesome, the movie’s going to crank the kaiju level up a few notches and reward your patience with the first big fight…and then it just cuts to the stupid wife and kid and the scene is covered in five seconds of crap TV footage. It’s like, someone needed to sit the director down and tell him that just because audiences understand the need for an awful human-based plot, that isn’t the reason WHY they want to go see a kaiju movie.

The big fight in San Fran didn’t even make up for it either, everybody keeps saying it was fantastic but to me it felt so unsatisfying, half the time Big G clashes with MUTO it abruptly cuts back to the humans, and when the scene does stay long enough for any actual action to happen the only reason godzilla doesn’t wipe them out instantly is because there just so happens to be two of them – mMUTO does the exact same dive-bomb-from-behind thing like three times until Godzilla finally just smacks him and wipes him out in two seconds. I just kept thinking of Pacific Rim and how Del Toro put emphasis on the Kaiju revealing new abilities to raise the stakes of the action – it didn’t necessarily make sense that Otachi would only reveal it can fly until late in the fight, but it works for the narrative of the battle and keeps things fresh. I kept waiting for either of the MUTO to reveal some kind of evolved defense feature as a trump card to provide Godzilla with a new challenge to overcome but it never happened.

Thanatos2k

Because they were hilarious rednecks for the most part.

Thanatos2k

You did say it was Cloverfield 2. Considering I thought Cloverfield was one of the worst movies I’ve ever paid for specifically due to that problem, you can see why people might still get the wrong impression.

Hieronymus Friedrich von Münch

bryan cranston is a tv actor, he’s lucky to be in movies, he’ll take any job i’m sure.

Dar

“I have to agree that Jurassic Park is the one CG heavy film that has held up over the years.”

LOL What a silly mofo you are. Judging by the amount of unjustified likes you’ve got, I’d say this place is insanely insular. Glad I’m not a heavy user here. Lots of dumb young men who touch themselves to Mike’s Plinkett reviews. Now, Mike’s Plinkett reviews are worth fooling with yourself to, but not nearly to this extent. Enjoy your false phallus-extracting likes, I bet it makes you feel knowledgeable and powerful.

Percy Gryce

Wow, I was in Charm City at the same time (1992-98). I saw a bit of Homicide: LOTS filmed and met Andre Braugher. It was my favorite show at the time and it was cool to be in proximity to it. (I was also in Philadelphia when they filmed the episode of St. Elsewhere–which was my favorite show at that time–in which Dr. & Mrs. Craig visited the Penn campus. There’s an exterior scene filmed behind Houston Hall and I was just off camera.)

Mark Bisone

“But don´t forget, Jaws is a living being, same with the xenomorph. That´s the creepy thing, we don´t know if they have WILL, of some sort.”

Oh, sure. They aren’t exactly the same as, say, a tornado. They have a certain kind of agency, but it’s not necessarily the human kind. In “Jaws”, the shark is certainly a monster, with all the mythic, primordial cache that the word “monster” implies. In a way, all sharks are nightmarish sea monsters, including those tiger sharks that haunted Quint.

But while Quint’s fate was ironic, he was still the master of it. He and the others were trying to prey on the apex predator, not the other way around. And his fateful, fear-driven decision to blow the Orca’s engines was what sealed it. The monster had certain simplistic motivations: “Eat when I’m hungry”, “Hurt the thing that’s hurting me”. It just doesn’t add up to a character for me.

I think animals/monsters can be characters. (that’s why I offered Cameron’s “queen” as a possible edge case). I think the difference is when they have a motivation that is *distinctly* human. In other words, people have the same base instincts as the Jaws shark ( “Eat when I’m hungry”, “Hurt the thing that’s hurting me”). But we also have other ones that are highly specialized to us humans, and which aren’t so apparent in other life forms. It’s those special motivations that make something a character to me, because I can get inside that being’s head and try to understand what it’s like to be it, maybe even empathize with it. Then they start to matter more than just being an obstacle for characters to overcome, because we have to weight their actions on the same moral scale.

“P.S: otherwise, I think you should write a book.”

Hah! Thanks! I am. When it’s published, my Redheaded Meateater buds here will be the first to know. This place has been very inspiring, and I think that will be clear in the book.

Mitchell Taco Nash

Rich Evans has a decidedly different reaction to the Red Letter Media Fizz®…

I was extremely disappointed they killed off Cranston’s character only ten minutes into the film. There was a massive charisma vacuum after he was written out, especially since the actor playing his son was competent but only really interesting in terms of his relationship with him.

I was also bothered by how vague about it the film was. I actually had to turn to the person I was with and ask them if he was dead or not, because he dies off-screen and the characters only made vague comments about it.

What was the point of showing him getting treatment for his injuries and making it to the helicopter only to have him die off-screen from those injuries a few moments later? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have him die in a dramatic way during the actual emergence of the MUTO? Or at least let him survive until the next attack? Or how about this. The sons wife is a nurse right? Have him be taken to the hospital she works at to get treatment for his injuries so later on in the film when the hospital is threatened his wife has something to do and can try and get him out of the building.

Other than that obvious mistake, it was pretty good. I liked that the humans are so completely and utterly out-matched by the monsters. All the monsters have to do is walk from one place to another or brush up against something to completely fuck everything up. I also liked that the military is so incompetent in the face of them and starts out making schemes to destroy the monsters, then spends the rest of the film trying to clean up their mistakes.

I didn’t really understand the plan with the nuclear weapon though. I think they were hoping that the monster took it somewhere uninhabited so they could detonate it, but that seems like a pretty big gamble.

andypants1989

He’s about the height of the average building in Hawaii so 30 stories seems about right.

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

My favorite part was where Godzilla and Santa Claus crashed into Twisted Sister. That was awesome!

Mark Bisone

My favorite part was when Godzilla smashed up the Beckersteads’ big real estate presentation.

The human part of the storey was about as small as it could have been. I honestly don’t understand this complaint. I would have been bored shitless by a film with a bunch of monsters fighting and no human characters, just people running and screaming in the streets or something.

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

At this point no one cares, not even Kathy Griffin, er, what’s her face.

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

We got a Pacific Rimjob.

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

Isn’t that the one where the Body Thetans threaten to conquer the world, but Tom Cruise saves it?

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

It’s no Jack and Jill, that’s for sure.

andypants1989

The film probably should have been named Godzilla Vs the Mutos. Godzilla isn’t the major threat, but I liked that. It reminded me of the classic Japanese Godzilla movies which I watched when I was a kid. The whole point of Godzilla as a character is that he’s a big bad who fights other big bads, making him kind of a reluctantly tolerated anti-hero. That wouldn’t have gotten across without the other monsters.

Striker, Ted

Dance haha yeah keep dancin

andypants1989

They needed more Ken Watanabe in the action sequences and less of the boring guy. Watanabe was the best actor in the film next to Cranston and all he got was expositional dialogue in the war-room. I’m hoping he gets a lot more to do if they make a sequel.

jaymanxyz2

700th Comment! I think this is one of the most popular and active RLM video comments section I’ve ever seen.

andypants1989

That explains it. I tried about three times to figure out what point you were trying to make in that opening paragraph and couldn’t follow you at all.

andypants1989

Well, he’s a brilliant actor so it makes sense. In the same way people casting an older African American actor always reach for either Morgan Freeman or Samuel L Jackson.

andypants1989

Additionally, after reading the comments I notice a lot of people saying that Pacific Rim was better than this movie. I think they were both aiming to be very different kinds of films, with Pacific Rim going in a more fun Transformers type direction and Godzilla in a darker War of the Worlds type direction, but I thought this film was much better than Pacific Rim and the human characters and their relationships towards one another made a lot more sense. Also, for those who are complaining about there being too much human story and not enough monsters in this film I’m pretty sure there was less focus on the human characters in this film than there was in Pacific Rim. All I remember from the human story in Pacific Rim was endless fight / training scenes, an unconvincing love story and an an irrelevant subplot about the general guy dying. It was all really pointless.

Alex Lee

I actually did not hate that episode, but I think it’s because flies really irritate me too.

Also, I did not get the whole “Marie is the perfect wife” vibe at all. In the first two seasons, I thought she was a total bitch to her sister. That first conversation in the first episode had a lot of tension, where women pretend to get along, but they say two-faced words that can be insults. Then there’s the part where she actually “agrees with Walt” on refusing chemotherapy. My first reaction was “are you just saying that to disagree with Skyler?”

Mitchell Taco Nash

I’ll be waiting for Matthew McConaughey and his interstellar space crew to come to my local theatre sometime in the future, then [probably around November 7th…].

I thought it was because Meyer considers himself a novelist first and then a writer and then a director.

And while I do agree with “Art from Adversity,” the caveat I would add is that there has to be a baseline level of skill and knowledge of literature in order to get that pressure to work. I don’t think the likes of Orci or Lindeof could stitch together a high quality script in 12 days.

Alex Lee

It’s why my expectation for the new Star Trek movie is so low; an egotistical a-hole is in charge of every aspect of the movie.

andypants1989

Nice catch, never noticed that before.

Alex Lee

Whoa! An actual Jay response!

luck702

The one thing that bugged the ever-loving shit out of me in Godzilla? Somehow an EOD serviceman, who’s primary training involves IED defusal, is knowledgeable in the arming and disarming of nuclear warheads.

Mitchell Taco Nash

Did you miss the part during the helicopter flight where Joe [Bryan Cranston’s character] dies and his son, Ford, watches? I mean, they make sure to show not only Bryan Cranston dying but also that he ‘flatlines’. Did you also miss the part where they zip up Joe’s body in a body bag and his son again watches? That’s a pretty definitive death, quite the opposite of vague, so it seems that the problem is on your end for not paying proper attention to the film you were watching [did you take a piss break?].

For me the nuclear weapon plan at the end, along with them setting the timer to 1 hour and 30 minutes, was really stupid and contrived.

Jason Ross

Richard Evans was the character in Weekend at Richard’s, wherein Richard Evans dies but a black puts a curse on him and he walks around. I]’, pretty sureº

Billy Whitman

He did Baby’s Day Out and Cop Dog. May as well tear apart Big Bang Theory too. Outdated Nerd Stereotype says something awkward, laugh track, repeat.

Mitchell Taco Nash

[Spoilers… the angry, ranting kind :D]

One big problem I had with this movie was the ending involving the nuke. They set the timer for 1 hour and 30 minutes while still in the bay of the city and shortly after that, one of the MUTOs takes it. Yeah, good plan, geniuses. I mean, you’d think they’d be more careful seeing as how one of their nukes was taken the day before. After that, for all the various actions and events to occur, way more than 1 hour and 30 minutes would have had to pass. I mean, they set the nuke, it gets taken by one of the MUTOs, the MUTOs meet up in downtown San Fran, the female takes the nuke and digs a giant crater in the city, and she then sets up her nest. Meanwhile the army devises a plan to go parachute into the city, Ford somehow becomes part of that plan, they brief the soldiers, they then equip them, load and ready the plane, fly it from wherever they are to over the bay area, skydive and parachute down into the city where Godzilla and the MUTOs are now fighting, they then walk through the city streets many blocks to find the giant nest, somehow get down into the massive crater [I’m not exactly sure how they get down into it, but whatever] and the timer is ONLY at 30 minutes? I mean, give me a break. Seeing the timer at only 30 minutes actually made me angry.

Once they get to the nuke, for some stupid reason they can’t seem to get the panel open to the analog timer, saying that “it’s stuck”. They hardly try to open it, giving up quickly after one or two [lame-ass] tries. Instead of trying to open the panel and defusing it there, they opt to CARRY the fucking NUKE not only out of the crater, but ALL THE FUCKING WAY TO THE DOCK… MANY BLOCKS AWAY!!! So here all the army guys are, waddling to a dock while carrying a nuke while avoiding the giant fucking monsters fighting in the city where they’re not sure there are any boats, and even if there are they might not work because the MUTOs use EMP charges, and even if the boats do work it’s going to take far more than their remaining time to get the nuke far away from the city to not do any damage.

Needles to say, they somehow accomplished getting to nuke far away enough from the city on a small, slow as fuck, puttering little fishing boat. I… I just… whyyyyyyyyyyyy?! This is something that, honestly, could have been fixed in the script phase by doing this: 1 hour, 30 minutes 4 hours, 30 minutes*. Bam. Done. Fixed. Easy as fucking pie. They could have even digitally altered the timer in post, too, once they realizing how fucking dumb the whole sequence was, but I guess no one noticed. Well, I guess it wath kinda cool wen dey was skydivin. i liked it wen da giiant monserth wer fiting. i like it wen da gozdilla monster did da roar. i liked the atomic breff. i liked it wen da nuke went boom boom. thwords. mandurin

I’m pretty sure my optic nerves broke from my eyes rolling so much…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

According to wookipe…. I mean our species has subspecies Otolla (Jarjarpoo speices) and Ankura (my species). See how George made everything right in the prequels.

Perhaps you should finish watching the review before you start making assumptions in a comment because otherwise you look like a stupid fucking idiot who is only here to bitch and whine you miss where they elaborate on their point.

Mitchell Taco Nash

“Too many cocks in the kitchen” is what I read, and I refuse to read it any other way.

Mitchell Taco Nash

“I didn’t really think that was too hard to follow…”

I’m honestly not even sure what you mean by this yet you still somehow come off as a condescending ass. What point are you trying to rebut?

Mitchell Taco Nash

Scared, awe-filled, and constipated were the three expressions that Aaron Taylor-Johnston made. What a thespian!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

It think there are more players on the field.

Mitchell Taco Nash

When Bryan’s character appears to still be alive when being transporting onto the helicopter in a stretched, I leaned over to my friend and said, “Thank god he’s still alive!” Then a few minutes later when he died, I leaned over and said, “I take that back…”

The film lost the most interesting and engaging character with that death, even if he seemed to have a simple and nearly complete character arc. What was his son’s character again? Stoic? Macho? Like, we were given very minimal reasons to like or root for these other characters. They weren’t given any personalities and it just bored me.

Mitchell Taco Nash

*Pics mic up, dusts it off, places back onto stand.*

Show a little respect for the audio guys, please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Gungin slobbery bellylaugh.

andypants1989

Yes, I missed that. I didn’t know that’s what was going on and I don’t feel like it was clear. Characters flatline when they’re in critical conditions in movies all the time. It doesn’t usually mean anything unless somebody says ‘he didn’t make it’ or ‘time of death’ or whatever. Also I had no idea that was Bryan Cranston in the body bag. The first moment I realised his character was dead was when Watanabe said ‘sorry for your loss’ or whatever. Again, it was a bad choice and carried no dramatic weight to have him make it to the helicopter, seemingly fine, then have him die from his injuries on it. Why not just kill him during the actual hatching scene? It was just bad writing. I think another reason why I didn’t realise he was dead is they didn’t milk any emotion from his death and the son didn’t seem to have any reaction to it.

I don’t agree that the bit about disarming the bomb was contrived. Saying something is contrived is a way of saying something seems forced or unlikely and was only included in the story to get the writers out of a corner or progress the narrative. The plan going wrong seemed like a perfectly likely thing to happen given the circumstances and the bomb needing to be disarmed seemed like a natural response to that. If the nuke ended up being the thing that destroyed the MUTOS then I might have agreed with you about it being contrived, but as it stood it seemed like they were just logically following up a plot-thread they’d created. Maybe you mean it was contrived in that it gave the son character a reason to be at the final monster battle, but he was the lead of the film and needed some reason to be there and they’d already established he was a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan so it felt earned to me.

Also I really don’t appreciate your fucking interrogatory tone. I was sharing my personal opinion in the hopes it might help people make a decision about whether they wanted to see a fun blockbuster action movie or not. I’m sorry you took it so personally and got so angry about it. Chill the fuck out man. It’s just a fucking movie, you didn’t make it. It’s not your mother. Jesus christ, you must be a really unpleasant person to be around in real life.

Mark Bisone

Taco is actually quite pleasant to be around. Canadians have a distinct, musky odor that triggers nostalgic memories of Christmas past.

jaymanxyz2

Me and my friends were quite baffled when we saw that (I think I am remembering correctly) only approximately 14 minutes had passed when they took the bomb from the crater to the pier. You’re right, they should have greatly extended the time given. Heck, they could have just made this happen: “Well, the timing mechanism seems to be broken somehow, we shouldn’t trust what it tells us. Let’s try really hard to defuse this, and if for some reason it doesn’t defuse, let’s carry it to the pier.” I was sure Ford Brody was going to die at the end, but then I had to consider that they were going to pull a The Dark Knight Rises nuke. I can’t remember how much time he had, but I’m pretty sure it was way too short.

Mitchell Taco Nash

One outright financial bomb, yes [Lady in the Water], but if you look at the production budget for After Earth [an estimated $130 million, excluding marketing and printing costs which can be quite a hefty sum], it was a disappointment and most likely didn’t make a profit until home video release, if at all. To make a profit on a film, you typically have to earn roughly twice as much as your budget as movie studios rake in roughly 50% of ticket grosses over the lifetime of a film.

andypants1989

Honestly man, who gives a shit?

Mark Bisone

I don’t know why all you people are so angry, but I’ll agree that “The Host” was a great little monster flick.

Mitchell Taco Nash

One of the few uses of the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy that I actually agree with. You’re not a ‘Star Wars fan’ just because you like everything Star Wars related. You need to be able to identify the good and the bad.

I personally consider myself a Star Wars fan because I feel the world of the original trilogy is just fucking brilliant. From the Force, to the classical tales, to the state-of-the-art special effects, to the hard work and fine craftsmanship that were put into the films [to a lesser degree on the original, but still], to the many cool ideas and weaspons/ships from the films [light sabers, the Death Star, the Mellenium Flacon, the X-Wings, the AT-ATs, etc. are all fucking cool], to the brilliant people who took the basic ideas/concepts that George Lucas had and changed them, keeping him from fucking up his own creation [his original idea was… not so great].

Mitchell Taco Nash

He wasn’t wearing this moustache in the dream I had of him last night.

…which was about me going back to high school to take a stupid math course which was oddly more advanced than any university math course I’ve taken and it was taught by… Mike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

130mill on After Shlock? Wow. I watched the first 30 minutes of it. It does not make any sense that a greenscreen costs that much money. Didn’t think it would get that kind of a budget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Your brayin does?

Stan Spiropoulos

I loved the film….I got what I paid for the ending was awesome.

Mitchell Taco Nash

The movie would have been a lot better had the nuke just gone off in downtown San Fran.

“Also I really don’t appreciate your fucking interrogatory tone. I was sharing my personal opinion in the hopes it might help people make a decision about whether they wanted to see a fun blockbuster action movie or not. Do you understand that concept? Fun? I’m sorry you took it so personally and got so angry about it. Chill the fuck out man. It’s just a fucking movie, you didn’t make it. It’s not your mother. Jesus christ, you must be a really unpleasant person to be around irl.”

Seems I touched a nerve. My apologies.

My points were that the death of Cranston’s character was rather explicit and that you either didn’t notice or were away from the theatre when it happened. If my memory serves me right, the body bag scene is a close up on his lifeless face which then slowly zooms out and pans upwards, showing the body bag being zipped up and revealing his son watching it happen. Even if you didn’t recognize Cranston’s face from the side and without his glasses, the logical conclusion would be that it’s him as his son is standing beside a middle-aged Caucausian male being zipped up in a body bag. In the helicopter he dies on screen, which is done through Cranston’s acting while the camera is on his face, the medic uttering lines implying that they’re losing him, and cutting to the electrocardiogram showing a flatline, typically a way for films to show death. On top of that, when he was getting carried into the helicopter on the stretcher, we can see that he’s not in very good condition as he doesn’t seem to be responsive and has what appears to be a neck brace on.

With all those clues being explicitly shown on screen, the filmmakers were making it rather clear that he was dead. I disagree with you saying it was vague for these very reasons. The climax dealing with the nuke was contrived for the reasons I list in a comment near the top of this page [currently, anyway]. I seem angry in the post, but I assure you it’s all in good fun.

Captain Sheryl Crow

This is where Mike should have been less worried about monster safety and more worried about being cool about fire safety.

Mitchell Taco Nash

Wait, I thought that kid was a young Mike!

[For the record I made this image back on September 27th, so technically I’m not copying you ]

I can’t even remember what the nukes were for. They were trying to kill the MUTOs, right? Something like that…but, despite all the nuke nonsense (nukesense?), I still liked the film. At the very least, I couldn’t hate it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

The lighting is not as even as in previous episodes and it’s a tad darker and it has a yellow tint. This proves that all them Patreon money is a “direct to booze” thing. W’ere on to you! YOU FRAUDS!

Mitchell Taco Nash

Their plan was to lure the three monsters out into the ocean using the nuke as bait as to then detonate it, killing all 3 of them. I’m not exactly sure why they set it while sitting still in the bay, though, and why they’d give themselves such a large room for error. A lot of things can go wrong in an hour and a half.

Thom Stone

a bit ironic that you seemingly freaked out and lost your cool in the very paragraph where you’re asking someone to calm down and chill out

rlm comments section is srs biznz

Thom Stone

anyone else have to pause the video when mike says ‘the sucks sense’?

that joke and his expression after it were perfection

Thom Stone

unsubscribe!

jaymanxyz2

Holy crap, you’re right!

andypants1989

Hate to be a nitpicker, but the T-rex in Jurassic Park looked real because it was animatronic not CGI.

While I agree overall that the movie is only average, I thought one or two bits really reached a level of quality promised by the trailer. The HALO jump especially is awe-inspiring tonally, aided by the soundtrack and visuals. Beautiful cinematography. It’s too bad there weren’t more images like that in the movie.

Baramos x

A lot of it was animatronic but some of the wider shots and action shots used CGI. And it generally looks better than Godzilla and a lot of other movies (though the asssertion that it looks flawless, especially in comparison to most recent movies…not so sure on that strong a statement, at least when talking about the CGI shots).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Yes this was one scene made completly with animatronics but there are other scenes that just use CG that look good even today. They combined the two in the entirety of the movie and they could avoid making crappy looking CGI because of it. I mean Smaug in close up looks really CG. Exellent oppertunity to use animatronics.

I’m sorry but only a couple of shots are animatronics: mostly close-ups of the head and the foot in the scene where the TRex breaks out. And it looks a little bit stiffm becuase the head didn’t have much articulation. All the full body shots of the TRex are CGI and they still look fucking amazing on that scene. On all the daytime scenes though he looks a little bit fake, that’s because the lighting-CGI-technology wasn’t that far advanced back then. But not only did they get the look, the people who naimated it, did a pretty darn good job with the weight and the movements of that thing. THat’s not always the case for 200mio+ BLockbuster movies (like those beloved prequel StarWarsfilms), it feels like most of the animators just want to do cool stuff without thinking about the characters unique anatomy or limits. Go look up any of those Transformers movies and you see these huge robots, jumping around like ChunLi, always trying to pose cool (for the camera) and one of the most over-used schticks for the animators: keep “twisting the body” for every f’ing move. I even saw that in that Jurassic World teaser, where those flying dinosaurs movie like they wanna win an award for a fly show.

It’s those restraints in Jurassic Park (and in the new Godzilla) that makes the performances of the monsters stand out.
Rant-modus: off

Alex

They just used a racist-lens.

Alex

I noticed that stretch of time too, but honestly, many movies do that all the time, it didn’t bother me so much. What botheres me though is the outcome of actions, in TDKR and Godzilla nobody seemed to worry that a huge tsar bomb went off just a couple of miles from their coast, they never mention what it means for the city, or I must’ve missed it.

Mitchell Taco Nash

I’m exaggerating a bit with how much it bothered me, but I still thought it was really stupid and something that is easily fixed in the script phase while still leaving the climax with enough tension with the timer counting down [especially now with a more reasonable time period].

Nuclear warheads blowing up near a highly populated city is fine.

Did you say ‘radiation’? Oh…

Domo_Konnichiwa

I’m glad you made it clear you weren’t copying me. The hounds have been called off

Domo_Konnichiwa

What would be the drink to pour on poor Rich? He’s a teetotaler, I think.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I watch that episode so much. It’s so funny because of the information given, like George Carlin teaching a Psychology class.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I think you guys gave timecodes in the past so that we could at least see the scripted part of your episode without any consequence. This poor Shazbot guy can’t see the 98 review of Godzilla without potentially rummaging through spoiler content. He wrote his argument completely wrong, but from what I understand of it, I empathize where he’s coming from.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Then let Rich watch Bambi II. Give the man something horrid to watch!

Domo_Konnichiwa

It’s almost required considering the movie. I’m surprised he didn’t TP the theatre as he ran in a naked frenzy out the door.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Well, now I know now to try ass, then. Thanks.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Someday, you will know this answer. And you will reach zen.

Domo_Konnichiwa

That’s some serious subliminal shade you threw there. I like it.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I wonder if it would have been fun to have Cranston still alive, but in ICU with a TV on in the background of all the carnage. When Godzilla finally ends his showdown, Cranston gives this weak thumbs up to the camera to show his satisfaction. That’s probably more of a fuck you to the audience than what they actually did.

Strelnikov

I’d rather contact M. Night Slippyfist.

Domo_Konnichiwa

HEY! You finally showed up!

Domo_Konnichiwa

In case the other hand can’t pull its weight.

Strelnikov

The Alien was more of a rapist/killer, and it only survived to be killed off by Sigourney Weaver because that escape pod didn’t have the annoying klaxon horns.

Pulp

Roland Emmerichs film Anonymous is both interesting and entertaining.

Now I Get It

Like Godzilla, I emerge from the nuclear mists of time just long enough to do a little dance…

Your English needs no excuse. It is better than many American college graduates’ English.

Are Yoda and Greedo stupid and outdated?

Yes. And. Yes. But, obviously, only as far as I’m concerned.

Most fiction movies must not necessarily be stupid just because many fantasy movies are. We all discern our particular boundaries for “not”, “just enough,” and “too” stupid. Godzilla can be fun, yes — otherwise I wouldn’t have tried the 2014 version — and stupid at the same time. But to argue one Godzilla is worse than another makes no sense to me, because they’re all stupid.

You have me intrigued, what is the true nature of Hank and Marie’s relationship? Beard? BDSM?

Justin Cole

I think the over hyped godzilla soundtrack made me angrier than the film its self. ( the 90’s godzilla)

Mark Bisone

Cake-farters, obviously.

A203

ya know speakin of speakin of seinfed, rich evans kinda reminds me of george costanza.. thats a good thing, i liked george.. he was great… that cutaway to rich yawnin was a classic .. well done lol

A203

so true, but then again umm thats ahh steven speiberg.. ya know.. though even steveo has done some average movies.. the man made jaws.. that movie alone gives him enough cred forever.. yeah he makes stuff ever since for the popular market.. and yeah i do wish jurassic park was a little more like jaws.. it contained just a tad too much kiddy friendly shit in it for my taste.. but.. its steven speilberg.. even at his worst he knows how to frame some bad ass shit., pretty hard to compare to a grand master really..

A203

come on man.. they just fell in love with one of the oldest cliches in the book.. the ticking clock lol

A203

big g lol

A203

still sucked in any case.. that is obviously one arm chair critics point of view.. but WOW… steven speilberg lost the plot on that one… dam that movie sucked

A203

haha thats dark dude.. but good lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

I can even smell him in this joke. *shudder*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Really? Hmm…. is there a way to be sure?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

One of the best. They put alot of work into it.

A203

yeah man of steel sucked.. like not just a little bit lol… man of steel sucked so much that whoever made it should never make another movie ever again..

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

How dark are we talking here? Why should we care about a random kid when there’s a city of thousands decimated before our eyes?

http://www.gofuckyourself.net Fred

heh what matters are your donations, not your petty subscriptions. This isn’t youtube.

A203

the time code existed before he pressed play.. cause he knew it went for 25 minutes.. though you did 2 separate movies.. he implied the 25 minutes as a 1 movie review… you would think he might have trouble with time codes as he already has trouble with adding 1 plus 1 equals 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

He seemed alot happier back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Naked frenzy…. now that’s a normal evening at the movies.

Conquerbeard

Rich’s reaction to the fish symbol was the best. For a brief moment, I saw a “404: File Not Found” flash in his eyes. That fish symbol broke him and my heart paused. IT’S TOO EARLY FOR YOU TO TAKE HIM FROM US, GOD – YOU HEAR ME?

Yes. Frankly, Orci, Lindelof and Kurtzman couldn’t work up a high quality script in 12 years. And it’s not just because they are illiterate dopes either. Good storytelling requires an author who understands the human condition. They either don’t have this understanding or don’t give a fuck about it.

There’s a certain horrible irony about the current crop of hacks. In previous eras, most screenwriters weren’t “celebrities”; movie audiences generally didn’t know or care who wrote something, and many of the greatest screenwriters generally plied their trade in anonymity. These days, writers are generally more acknowledged by the public, and the most famous of them suck hard.

http://flesheatingbug.deviantart.com/ Som

unrelated …. x-men was good…….. i’m as amazed as everyone else

My ex wife

Pepsi.

Captain Imabadguy

Yeah I’m glad they mentioned the cartoon series, because to my memory, it was solid. The same could be said for the Men in Black series. Both were infinitely better than the films they were based off of.

what matters is getting references to rlm memes on the rlm webzone before you decide to go on the defensive

Jeremy Davis

ahhhh, after watching this review I got my daily dose of the Care Boars. Duhhhhh…. i saved Christmas.

Gus Baker

Am I the only one who was ticked that Godzilla was getting his butt kicked by two nobody rather un-exceptional monsters and had to be saved by the dull as women’s golf “hero”? Godzilla is the freaking “King of Monsters” (OK King Kong might have something to say about that) for Pete’s sake, he should have owned those two without breaking a sweat!

Thom Stone

i can tell youre taking things too seriously.

you call his comment ‘attacking” which is nearly luaghable. seeing as how you couldnt figure out an important character died in the film you probably cant figure out which tone he was using in his reply. taco is no threat, hes one of those apologetic canucks and he pointed out it was blatantly obvious that brian cranston died.

if youre gonna stick round this neck of the webs, you should probably become less reactionary to comments. we may come off as assholes but we’re a pretty loyal fan base with a wicked sense of humor.. dont let your jimmies get so easily rustled, buddy

Maybe it would’ve lowered the tension of not knowing how it would turn out. But then maybe it would’ve been an interesting movie in the sense that Godzilla beating the crap out of the other monsters causes so much destruction that the humans have to find away to put Godzilla down…

Maybe, maybe.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I was wrong. He drank Fuel Cafe in the first RoboCop review. My “RLM Drink meter” Excel spreadsheet was somehow corrupted by the Conduit Virus, and gave me the incorrect information.

Domo_Konnichiwa

In Rich Evans’ voice and with a subtle sweep of his hand: “Pick em up.”

Gus Baker

Well, certainly I understand they had to make the fight interesting, so I’m not objecting to them getting a few licks in, but they would have killed him if not for the eggs exploding.

I do like your idea of Godzilla being the enemy instead of the friend, based on the previews I thought he was going to be this horrific menace, I was a little dissapointed to see him become some cute, cuddly savior.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Oh Jesus. Is that a bird?! My day is so ruined.

Domo_Konnichiwa

I think if we were all in a room just chatting about this movie, we’d all be much more civil and cordial, until someone says Bryan Cranston’s a hack, then it’d become “Every Punch in Roadhouse.“

Domo_Konnichiwa

Are a lot of Godzilla movies from the 50’s and 60’s the same setup as 2014’s Godzilla?

I’ve only seen one early Godzilla movie, “Godzilla vs. The Thing(Mothra),” and it really runs the same storyboard: Character and plot setup, “enemy” animal shows up, another enemy animal shows up, military tries to fix things but makes things worse, Godzilla shows up, the enemy becomes the hero, everyone goes back to the sea.

It just seems that 2014’s creators were almost too loyal to the old Godzilla style, based on what little I know about the franchise.

WARNING: He mostly reviews movies made by the likes of Jim Jarmusch, Lars Von Trier, and Harmony Korine. You know, “art-house”. However, he also hates the term “art-house”.

Sully

True, but liquid effects and “living” things aren’t really comparable. Though the Abyss had great CG liquid also.

They had a better understanding of how to blend practical, visual, and digital effects back then. Now everything is a green screen nightmare.

Sully

Yeah, the “Han Solo was originally a giant lizard man” idea was one I’m grateful was shot down in preproduction.
The originals felt like a real place in the universe, someplace far far away, but someplace real.
The new ones felt like nothing more than a computer generated portfolio for what Lucas’ companies could do sound and FX-wise, which was less than what WETA could do apparently.

http://hardycases.com/ Hale

I don’t have a single word, phrase, image, or thesis to properly react to that statement.

The best I can do is this;

Ha ha ha ha.

Burn

YAY, I live in the most populated city in the world and I send my love to ya, RLM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

You checked? Wait…. oh yea, there is officer dead body in the back on his chable. Thanks, good thing you had those spreadsheets. Your obsession of Rich is of course shared by us all.

Xor

As someone who saw the 98 Godzilla as a kid the dumb cartoony-ness of it worked well for me at that time.

Robby

Plus the guy’s name was Ford.

Come on, son.

A203

yeah actually that pretty much summed up how i felt watchin man of steel really.. only i dont recall laughin at the time.. yeah i must admit i really hate man of steel.. because it invokes 911 but uses a childrens idol to do it… yeh thats not even funny really.. not often i develop a hate on a movie.. but yeah fuck man of steel lol

Alex Fleming

so what you have said is that this reviewer who doesnt like roland emerich is a pretentious hipster. cuz while I like Jim Jarmusch, LArs Von Trier is an acquired taste that is not for everyone,

and I say pretentious hipster cuz you also clarified he hates the term arthouse. Oh I like arthouse movies but arthouse movies are for fags and I’m not a fag man.

Alex Fleming

it’s so dense every single comment has so much going on.

Alex Fleming

hey man you detonate a bomb in the water and it’s a local problem anyway, it’s not like it’s going to effect rainfaill on all pacific coasts.

A203

notice how it says the paedophile uh i mean director didnt turn up at the screenings lol.. bryan singer takes lil boys up the ringer… how he can still make movies at all.. is an indictment on how money… talks

i can actually say that the first hobbit movie.. sucked balls… i saw it with my own eyes.. and.. i have read the book.. it sucked so hard that i cant even bring myself to watch the second installment yet…

A203

actually anybody who goes to watch xmen days of future past with the prior knowledge that the director is a pedophile… is themselves morally bankrupt.. that is my 2 cents

HNSZ

Are we done?

ident

1. How is he a pedophile?
2. How does watching a movie that was produced by hundreds or thousands of people of which one person may or may not have committed a crime at some point in his life reflect one’s morality, much less be evidence that one lives a completely amoral life?
3. If you restricted yourself to entertainment produced by law abiding citizens, have fun watching paint dry. Oh, wait…I guess not even that. http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cases/2013/03/130306sherwinwilliamsdo.pdf

Domo_Konnichiwa

It probably isn’t worth watching, though I’m definitely getting the extended DVD for Smaug because of the 10+ hours of special features. It’s sad that I like watching the special features more than the movie itself, whereas with LOTR, it’s the opposite.

At least with watching The Hobbit spec. features, you learn all the problems they ran into with getting that movie ready, but with Smoog, there isn’t that excuse. Jackson just wants to try new toys for visual effects and has forgotten substance.

Josh Iannuzzi

First of all, it’s alleged until evidence proves otherwise by a judge in court so unless you’re an attorney with concrete evidence implicating Singer, I would shut the fuck up.

I enjoy the movies of Singer, Polanski, and Allen. I loved DOFP so consider me morally bankrupt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

This is not the right place to discus such things, problably most would agree. The case is still in court an do verdict has been given. Innocent until proven guilty, I will enjoy this flick with my morality intact and with a good conscious untill that day.

Sully

Up vote for “Atomic Breff.” Hahahahahaaaaaa…

Sully

The Godzilla in the new movie is closer to the tan image, not the darker brown one.

Dar

Thank you very much!

I guess he is about the same height of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, “30 stories high”.

Still he seemed bigger in the movie ads.

Jason

if RLM has taught us anything, it’s that no force on earth will keep the dumbmasses from watching Hollywood schlock.
I’m not watching the x-men movie, not for any moral reasons but simply because it will be an awful turd. Whether Singer is a pedophile or not is still to be determined, but the fact that he is a complete hackfraud has been fully established in my mind.

Orion Burns

Actually, he just hates the term “art-house” because it’s too simplistic.

maybe you should read up on it before you comment, very convenient he chose right before the release of a major film to sue someone. Also if he was raped surely he’d want his rapist in jail rather than suing him, I know I would.

Cam Just

and yet they are.. and they’ll make many more crappy movies sadly.

J Jo

I understand why some people wouldn’t like this movie (even though I enjoyed it
quite a bit, it has some flaws), but anyone who prefers he 98′ version
over this one just shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Period.

Mitchell Taco Nash

What a coincidence, ‘Radioactive Tsunami’ is my band name.

Mitchell Taco Nash

Also the fact that thousands of people outside of Singer have worked hard on the film. I bet you there are other people in the crew that have done terrible acts [this one hasn’t even been determined yet], but the majority of people are just decent, hard working people.

While sitting through the credits to watch the after credits scene, I just sat there, looking at the screen, trying to read the names and positions of all the people who worked on the film. Sure, only a very small percentage of the people who worked on the film get the credit, but films are large collaborative efforts which sometimes takes small armies to put together.

Mitchell Taco Nash

For some reason I was under the impression that people here would have more sense and weren’t going to bother bringing up the still ongoing case as if the defendant had already been proven guilty… I was proven wrong.

You guys calling Bryan Singer a pedophile are making the Pizza Bear both jealous and starved for attention. He’s sad now, guize.

Plz, think of the bear.

JacobHunnter

X-Men was really, really good. As movie fans, surely this is what we should be talking about?

ident

Someone politely disagrees with you and gets sparse support so you call him a “silly mofo” and dismiss the entire RLM community as “insular”. Better get back to 4chan before you miss an opportunity to call someone Hitler and level up that epeen.

ident

Only if he switched over to a Golden Girls episode mid-fight.

Mitchell Taco Nash

355 feet is 108 metres, so this new Godzilla is actually smaller than both the brown one and the tan one. I posted an image below that says his true size, which is from Legendary.

Mitchell Taco Nash

TapewormBike, you’re back! We missed you! Where have you been? Jay’s been lonely.

Liz Frazier

You have no idea.

sepiajack

Agreed!

sepiajack

Exactly. Also, 17 is just under legal adult, that doesn’t make him a pedophile even if it was true. Pedophiles like little kids.

Also, even if Singer is guilty, like 7000 other people worked on this movie, so all of them deserve not to have a success from their hard work? Surely by statics alone every movie had someone on its cast or crew who has done something wrong.

sepiajack

The Usual Suspects, Xmen, X2 and Valkyrie are all good movies, as is the new Xmen. But to each their own.

sepiajack

Well you believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty’ which still gives you moral superiority over the rest of the pitchfork waving mob I see on the internet discussing this issue.

sepiajack

Why were you surprised, all the trailers looked great, it has a knockout premise, outstanding cast, and the director of X2 back at the helm. This was the closest to a ‘sure thing’ I can think of in recent years for a summer movie that was guaranteed to be great.

Daniel Nguyen-Phuoc

I get that sometimes it’s hard to equate success with criminal acts. Like it’s hard to find justice in the world when people commit crimes but still can be lauded with success. One friend of mine felt like that after the Woody Allen case was brought up again.

BUT the new X-Men was just excellent. Whatever Bryan Singer does with his life, he does make good movies.

sepiajack

Cool, I’d like to check that out. His audio commentary on the wrath of khan dvd is in my opinion more educational to budding filmmakers then my entire 3rd year in film school.

Well I still stand by the first four seasons of LOST as being pretty great. How much of that is because of Lindeloff, and how much of it is inspite of lindeloff, we shall never know. I haven’t liked any of his other movies or work, although I do think INTO DARKNESS is the best Trek movie since Undiscovered country. But that’s mainly because its only dumb, and not boring, where as all the TNG films and the first JJ Trek are both boring AND dumb.

sepiajack

Yeah of all the people they could have hired, they went with the one who had ZERO directing experience.

sepiajack

Well said.

sepiajack

I agree, however to be fair this board is much more mature than say the comingsoon.net ones, where I see comments like ‘they should just execute him now, come on, he looks like a perv so we know he’s guilty!’

sepiajack

Well said Boss Nass. Also I think you should end all comments with: “Now gooooooooo”

Jason

I’ll agree The Usual Suspects was excellent, but I don’t think Singer deserves too much credit for that one. He had a cast of world-class actors giving some of their best performances in rolls they were perfectly suited to play. I’d honestly give the casting director (Francine Maisler) more credit than Singer for making that movie what it was.

A203

wow look at these people defending it.. shameful

A203

how is he a pedophile…. well he rapes little boys…. umm does that answer your question? …. you stil going to defend him?….

A203

and then when he is found guilty? you gonna feel ok then?

Matthew Cook

At the end there, I genuinely thought Rich Evans was going to transform into Emperor Palpatine – there was that much hate on his face.

Thom Stone

youre the type of person that probably believed every rumor they heard on the playground and in high school as if they were facts.

you don’t realize you’re basically begging the question, either. “how do i know he’s a pedophile? because he’s a pedophile!” pathetic.

When X-Men came out back in 2000, you were a part of those thousands of others that made it possible, Mr. Holocaust Wheelbarrow Man.

Jason Ross

Listen up, bruttas.

If your level of hack fraud reaches over 9,000, Jessie is going to have to engage in degrading items in order to keep viewership going on this site. All those donations clearly went to Chunky’s Chicken and alcohoil.
Or you could retina viewers the old-fashioned way and roll out a new Plunkett Review.

Hackfrauds, kindly take notice and restore the old republic on your site. thanks buybui

Thom Stone

you know how i can tell youre not a real fan?

a real fan would know her name isn’t ‘jessie’. it’s ‘jassi’

Alex

Funny thing is, in True Lies it never bothered me when the nuclear bomb went off. I think it’s mainly because the movie is very exagerrated in it’s heightened reality, like a parody of a James Bond movie. Not many action movies out there with this kind of attitude and fun. Since most movies nowadays are trying to be gritty and realistic, logical gaps will be more evident and distracting.

I hope this trend will end in a couple of years and we can have movies again which embrace the ‘un-reality’.

Jason Ross

Insolence! Cant you see im trying to save this websight!

sepiajack

That’s true! I hadn’t even thought of that. This new movie also opens with a concentration camp, but in the fuuuuture! (of space?), I wish they had had me back but this time I could be old and my wheelbarrow hovers cause its the future.

But all joking aside I loved this movie, and I’m glad to see that just about every else is too!

sepiajack

World class? Stephen Baldwin’s ONLY good performance is in that movie. Benecio Del Toro was an unknown, Spacey was basically discovered by that movie. I’ll give you Byrne, but really to just dismiss the directing, the visuals, and everything else that’s great about that movie… hey to each their own. But Singer definitely knows where to put the camera, I just watched Valkyrie for the first time on friday and the directing is topnotch in that movie. and X2 is a perfect summer film. I haven’t seen jack the giant beanstalk slayer, and Superman returns does indeed suck. But overall I like Singer’s stuff

Thanatos2k

That’s the most famous highlight of Randy Johnson’s career!

Thanatos2k

How about you wait until the facts come out in court before you jump to conclusions?

sepiajack

is accused of,

Thanatos2k

You say “when” like you know something we don’t. IF he is found innocent will you post a redaction admitting you’re an idiot? Somehow I doubt it.

i know, us morally deplorable people who don’t rush out to call someone a pedophile based on accusations. how disgusting of us to treat him as a human being and to assume he’s innocent until proven guilty.

Domo_Konnichiwa

Ack! I wonder if the runner on second really screwed up by not high-tailing it to third.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Oh, man your avatar looks poofed. Get some rest.
I don’t think it’s really that bad. They are just not interested in the Godzilla francise. Makes it hard to delve deeper or develope further.

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

And no talk of the subtle lensing used by Roland Emmerich in the Hank Azaria scenes. Philistines!

Andrey Tarkovsky Reference

Or George Zimmerman teaching a gun safety class.

ElCamino

Hi Jay! I just thought I’d take a moment out of my busy schedule to make you miserable, by letting you know that Roland Emmerich will be directing a sequel to Independence Day, titled Independence Day Forever (Sounds awful already, doesn’t it!) slated for a 2016 release! Enjoy!

Mikey

Interest Godzilla 98 fact. After his run on Degrassi Jr High, the actor who played Joey Jeremiah (yes the Zit Remedy leader) went to hollywood to try and make it there. Godzilla was the only movie he landed in. He’s one of the helicopter guys that yells AAAAAAAHHHHHHH before he dies.

FACLC

They really should have done a 3-movie viewing: Godzilla (1998), Godzilla (2014), and GODZILLA 2000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

I get your point, don’t get me wrong and don’t try to make me look like I endorse criminal behaviour. I agree to it to a certain extent that you could find it difficult to buy or watch the movie and of course I would not feel ok with anybody anywhere that is a rapist or a childmolester. i make these choises on many movies. I don’t watch certain movies because they are demeaning towards women, or carry a racist tone and ridicule people in general.

But I don’t feel I can make a black and white judgement on this movie. I don’t think I will ban the movie nor throw it out if I bought it, just because of all of the work all the poeple involved in the movie has put into it. It’s unfair to the people that worked on the movie. Political classes and countries today have scumbag leaders but it does not mean I will hate the people nor the country and if it’s true that there are certain groups of people in Hollywood that find themselves in nasty business I would like to see them in jail.

To answer your question now, if I would feel good watching it if he would get a guilty verdict. – I suppose it would feel akward but I would not feel guilty that by watching it I promote a childmolester. I don’t see the world that black and white.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

Also to rectify my previous post
-“This is not the right place to discus such things”.

I would want to reform my statement.
-If you want to bring up sensetive subjects like this please do so with a little bit more respect, because this is not a place to discus such things with that tone and attitude.

TapewormBike

Too much on my plate (or stranger´s ass to be coherent with my nick) right now. Soon I shall return and sexually harass Jay and the rest of you as you and the bearded ubermensch deserve.

Dswynne

pretentious, much? check.

Jason Ross

It should probably be written as <> on the movie poster. It is the only logical succession to the original.

For years I have been thinking if Bobcat is funny or not. My brain still has not reached a conclusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzHCOw3Y-VU Boss Nass

All right, I’ll give you lazy on that one.

Ludwig Scroggins IV

This is disgusting and offensive. How can they upload such a hilarious show at 240p?

ident

I will defend him because you are misrepresenting the circumstances to bully people into agreeing with you. He didn’t kidnap and rape little 5-year old boys, he is accused of sexually coercing a 15 year old, a terrible crime, yes, but not remotely on the same level.

I will defend him precisely because your bullying tactics are effective. We both know the accusation of pedophilia is as good as a conviction in the eyes of far too many people. Barring a complete exoneration and a picture of Bryan Singer hanging out with Jesus Christ during the entire period in question, no matter how this case turns out, Singer will be wearing the pedophilia label for the rest of his life. When he is 70 years old, if he remains successful, the headline will read: “Bryan Singer, accused pederast, wins Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Above all, I will defend him out of hope that were I ever in a similar situation, someone else will stand up to people like you and defend me.

ident

A correct use of “begging the question”. If there was an Internet tiara, I’d give it to you for the day.

They only show us the brief parts with Rich Evans not undergoing the Ludovico technique.

Sully

Don’t hate too much. He also wrote “alcohoil” and “buybui.”

Now I Get It

Too true. Elia Kazan, an arguably much greater artist, was dogged for decades by a much lesser charge, which, almost 40 years later, still carried enough weight to split the audience the night in 1999 that he received his honorary Oscar.

at 4:09.. “but today the number of children having sex with adults is beyond belief. if you define a child as anyone under 30 the figure is over 86%”

this had me rolling. such biting satire of news networks and mass hysteria around relatively nonexistent threats. paedogeddon!

Captain Turbo

When are you dudes going to review Blended?

Mitchell Taco Nash

This reminds me of cases of rape accusations. Most often an accusation is all it takes in the eyes of the public. Even once they turn out to be completely untrue, not only is it too late for the accused as their life has already been ruined and they’ll always have to deal with the awful stigma but also the accuser typically gets away with it without reprimand.

It reminds me of a case near my part of the world in which a young girl named Rehtaeh Parsons committed suicide after allegedly being gang raped and having been bullied/harassed about it both online and in real life once word got out and photos from the incident were spread.

I’m not sure how many of you were familiar with the incident, but at one point it even involved ‘Anonymous’ who had collected the names of the alleged rapists, but upon wishes from Rehtaeh’s family [fuck her name is difficult to spell] their names were not publicized, which is a good because the accused boys are all under the legal age and their identities are supposed to remain unknown until it can be definitively proven through the courts [and, I think, once they’re of legal age, but that one I’m not sure of].

Anyway, I remembered reading many people’s comments about the case, some more personal than others and I have friends that knew her, and nearly everyone automatically believed Rehtaeh’s accusations and were basically on a witch hunt for the alleged rapists. However, the story that Rehtaeh had told was both inconsistent with other evidence, including what her friend witnessed at the party the alleged rape was at [which appeared to be consensual], and was even inconsistent with her own prior versions of her story.

The thing I’m trying to say is that people get so emotionally fuelled by these stories that they want to protect the alleged victim by going after the accused, ignoring rationale in favour of gut instincts, even though the accusation had not been proven true and the reason for her suicide was more complicated than the alleged rape itself.

*Drops mic, walks off stage.*

*Thinks, runs back up, puts mic on stand, then scurries away.*

Thom Stone

may i ask what your definition of a pedophile is?

the way you’re using it seems quite different than the way everyone else uses it. typically pedophilia is when an adult or older adolescent is sexually attracted, either primarily or exclusively, to prepubescent children which are usually beneath the age of 11.

as ident corrected you on here what bryan singer is accused of is sexual coercion of a 15 year old teenage boy. you can say how wrong that is, but at this point it’s only an accusation and it is NOT pedophilia.

twisting the facts and using manipulation techniques to shame others into either siding with you and making them feel morally conflicted for having watched the movie is a dirty tactic and you know it.

Domo_Konnichiwa

#ScientologyRocks

Domo_Konnichiwa

Here’s a bucket in case the thought overwhelms you and you need to hurl.

Domo_Konnichiwa

No, we should be talking about Quiksilver having modern headphones when Sony Walkmans weren’t even made yet.

Nit-Picking Comment! Totally took me out of the movie! Unsubscribed!

Alex Lee

They did. See the jack and jill review.

asscrackconvictedfelon

Tha Webzzz

sepiajack

RIP Joey Jeremiah. Zilla Remedy that helicopter was not.

sepiajack

There’s also a movie which has The Aslyum’s fingerprints all over it making the rounds on movie channels right now called ‘Independence Day-Zaster!’

Yes the exclamation point is actually part of the title

sepiajack

“No….. NO…. NOYOUWILLDIE!!!”

sepiajack

Your 2 cents were worth every penny.

In unrelated news, Canada has eliminated the penny…

sepiajack

I hope Jay & Mike and Rich enjoy it too, not because I need them to agree with me, but because after years of watching Half in the Bag I feel like they deserve to see a summer movie that they love!

sepiajack

He can’t be found guilty, it’s only a law suit, he will either be liable for damages, or he won’t. Personally if someone raped me, suing for money would be the least of my concerns.

sepiajack

I think the other thing is, nothing about this movie has any inkling of encouraging or condoning or romanticizing sexual assault.

I think the Jeepers Creepers movies are less palatable because not only was the director a convicted and confessed child molester BEFORE he was hired, but because the movies are about a monster victimizing young people. That feels a lot closer to the ‘Psycho from Texas’ scenario of the guy pouring the beer over the naked girl’s head.

In all likelihood we will never know for certain what really happened, nor is it any of our business really. I will say that when I met Singer in 2000 on the xmen set, he was very nice, he skipped his whole lunch break to talk to extras about Xmen, and researching the holocaust, and filmmaking. That doesn’t prove or disprove anything of course. But at the end of the day I’d rather live in a world where a movie might have been directed by a sexoffender, than a world where people are deemed guilty until proven innocent.

sepiajack

Well we could always make accusations against him, and then by his own code of justice he would be instantly guilty!

sepiajack

Very well said. My mom had a work colleague who was falsely accused of something like this, and even when it was disproved beyond a shadow of a doubt, the accusations had done their damage and he ended up committing suicide.

I think the other really interesting angle to all this, aside from all the knee-jerk homophobia that this is bringing out in all those ready to burn Singer at the stake, is the level of misogyny and sexism.

I just get the sense that if plaintiff was a woman, people would be saying “well what did she expect?” or “please she was obviously asking for it” and the usual shaming comments that get thrown at women.

But there is a strong undercurrent of ‘but how dare anyone do something like this to a man’.

sepiajack

Well said. and the issue is made even more complicated by the reverse also being true, because very often in sexual assault cases the victim is effectively put on trial.

This is an problem that is delicate on both sides, with no clear answer or solution.

But fundamentally I believe one of the only true achievements of actual civilization in human history was ‘innocent until proven guilty’, without it our courts quickly become like Tyrion Lannister’s trial on a recent game of thrones episode.

sepiajack

Indeed.

You know, not every person who hates president Obama is a racist, but an awful lot of racists hate Obama. And not everyone who is out to crucify Singer is a homophobe, but it sure comes across like many of them are, and then finally have a way to vilify a prominent gay man in a way that they can conceal within a seemingly politically correct cause.

People sure are up and arms about this. What about all the teenage girls that rock stars give drugs to and screw after concerts backstage? Nobody seems to give a shit about that. Oh right, because that’s ‘straight rape’ the ‘good’ and ‘natural’ kind of rape…

Thanatos2k

You mean Jurassic Park 3?

sepiajack

Also, up until what… the 20th century the concept of a teenager didn’t exist, there was just children (pre-puberty) and adults (post puberty)… so by that logic everyone prior to the 20th century was a pedophile by these people’s standards

Pete Zarrol

*hangs head in shame*

Thom Stone

i am laughing from this. the ‘good and natural’ rape. hahah the kind that’s morally justifiable.. the kind that god accepts!

if you go back even further its not until the 16C-17C that the concept of children is introduced, which also can be seen in art. before then children were depicted as miniature adults with adults characteristics and features. it is during this time period that the art starts showing children more accurately and the idea of ‘children/child’ is created, which describe them as having a lower level of maturity than adults and thus have special needs that come from adults, like protection and nurturing.

Jose

Oh man, I’d watch that for a dollar!

sepiajack

You know, because a woman’s body… it can… well it can shut that whole thing down…

JacobHunnter

How great was Quicksilver other than that EMBARRASSING mistake, though?

Mitchell Taco Nash

Remember back when RLM wasn’t a bunch of hack frauds? You know, back when they had integrity and would actually upload content at semi-regular intervals? You know, back when they weren’t nearly as busy with other things and were trying to put together a feature length film/passion project? I’m sick and tired of them trying to do new and creative things while still giving us the things we enjoy.

UNSUBSCRIIIIIIIIIBE!

Thom Stone

that’s a bible quote, right?

Malach

Since you guys hate M. Night Shyamlan so much, it would be incredibly entertaining to see your reviews of some of his older films. You guys didn’t like Signs, The Village or Lady in the Water?

Domo_Konnichiwa

I thought he was wonderful. (No Spoilers

I felt he was too baby-faced for the role at first, because I always pictured that hero with really lean musculature, but it turned out great. The storyline shows his power in fast and slow motion so everyone understands how that power works. His presence doesn’t overwhelm the other characters, and he’s used appropriately to further the story along.

At first he seems like a little snot, but then you realize he’s just so bored because his power is so awesome. The writers even drop little hints that comic book fans can get a little giddy over in that “They were thinking of our needs, too!” kind of way.

HNSZ

You guys totally fed the troll. It seems his account is no more however. Or it could be just another Disqus bug.

Thomas Hunt

Godzilla 2000 was actually a legitimate Toho film that just happened to get a release in the US because Sony still had the distribution rights to the franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Bachattacks Bachattacks

Pump It! Pump It! Pump It! Pump It!

Meester Smeeth

Too late.

http://firstpersonsarcasm.blogspot.com FirstPerson Sarcasm

That was probably the funniest Rich Evans moment ever!!!! Just make a show with him watching movies and the morbid faces he makes while doing so. I’ll watch every last fucking episode.

Kevin O’Neil

Now that the initial shit storm of this movie has died down, I can think a little more clearly… Godzilla 2014 had its missteps for sure, with the cookie cutter dialogue and a squandered cast, but all in all it was a decent way to restart the franchise.
I think what killed it for most people, including myself, was the year long marketing campaign that blatantly advertised it as a horror movie. Had I not seen a bunch of epic, scary looking trailers for this film, I would have enjoyed it a hundred times more. The message in every trailer was, “Godzilla’s going to kill us all!” The movie we -got- was, “Godzilla saves the day!” So really, people like myself are more pissed that we were promised one movie and got another, where instead of leveling half a city, Godzilla did less collateral damage than Superman in Man of Steel.

Thanatos2k

Signs is so, so, so bad.

Thanatos2k

You unsubscribed too soon.

Wayne Traveler

Hey guys. I think if you were not comparing the new and old movies, and just let the new one stand on it’s own, you may not have recommended it. Just my opinion but, I found the new movie to be a droning bore. Nothing got me invested in any of the characters or the story. Even had a few drinks and low expectations going in but the new Godzilla didn’t do it for me or the people I saw it with.

Zach Solberg

THAT WAS THE FUNNIEST THING EVER!……….I’m so done. YOU GUYS ARE THE MODERN SISKEL AND EBERT. There is tension/disagreement mixed with trust/friendship. KEEP IT GOING FOREVER!

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Well, I don’t think this is a funny video…stupid maybe. Comparing this to the Australian comedians Clarke and Dawe, it is nowhere near as funny.http://youtu.be/DZYbF4p75CY

Reginald Van Der Slythe III

I can’t disagree with Jay’s complaints, but I’m with Mike in that I would recommend Godzilla. I was quite satisfied with it. I have to admit that, based on Monsters, I expected better human aspects, but I assume that someone else (screenwriters? studio?) got involved on that. The monster stuff was fantastic and I hope the sequel is pretty much nothing but monster stuff. Everyone I’ve talked to also agrees re: Bryan Cranston.

I had thought I only remembered searing rage re: the 1998 piece of shit, but I actually do remember a few things: intensely disliking all characters not played by Jean Reno; despising characters named Gene, Ebert, or played by Maria Patillo; my hate crystallizing into focus when the MSG sequence turned into Jurassic Park Lite; being astonished at how shitty the CG got; and feeling profoundly ripped off when it was over. Ever since seeing it in the theater, I have not watched it again and have no plans to ever do so. FUCK THAT MOVIE.

Really nice work, guys. I do have to say I find it odd that, when talking about the cheesy charm of guys in suits, you showed clips from Terror of Mechagodzilla, the 2nd darkest, most serious Godzilla movie after the original. For myself, I enjoy the cheesiness in some of the movies (the ’70s ones particularly) but can usually just take it all in and not think of it when the movie itself is good (the original, Mothra vs. Godzilla, and the ’90s Gamera trilogy for example).

Tabajaras

Your review summed up really well why I liked Godzilla 98 so much when i was 7. I loved Jurassic Park. This was essentially Jurassic Park with Helicopters, and as such, awesome.

True, Morris’ special isn’t funny through and through, as it really has only one joke, but that one joke does have its moments. What makes it classic is less in its humour and more in its structure and intent.

It reveals, in its first half, not only the moral panic of certain adutls over paedophilia but also, in its second half, the moral nonchalance of certain children, as if to say, “Yes, our children are vulnerable, but, no, no one in charge knows what to do about it.”

Its intent, then, is to address those who believe that the answer is, self-evidently, brute force and ignorance and arrest them. …Or at least make them go away, which is just what the original poster did, deleting his user name from his comments, after other posters started pressing him to explain himself.

Satire can’t solve the problem either, of course, it can only anatomise it. And, so, its second intent is to provoke others to start thinking about it, which some of the other posters did among themselves.

As to who is funnier…the humour in Morris’ earlier radio sketches were, as in your Clarke & Dawe video, much drier, such as this one about two morally relaxed parents whose child “was picked up from school by some dodgy-sounding bloke.”

Agreed. I’m ashamed to admit that as a kid I watched it more than once. Now, I appreciate he tried to do something different but it’s just the worst and has no right to be called Godzilla.

Kevin O’Neil

Wow… I spent a solid five minutes trying to mentally argue your statement that Terror of Mechagodzilla was the second darkest Godzilla film…. and I couldn’t do it. Mind = blown.

(I would bring up Godzilla 1985, but I’ve only seen the horribly dubbed American version… I’d have to see the subtitled version to honestly use it for comparison)

Brendan Paterson

guys i just realized something, think of it this way, Roland Emmerich was totally trying to make a godzilla mighty joe young. like the main charectors aren’t afraid of godzilla, they are just afraid of how he can fuck shit up, and they are always following him and trying to get him to stop causing trouble, and its almost like they are trying to get him out of harms way at time if i remember, and they like think her kids are cute and shit, and its like an endangered species.

Kyle

Why is the statue of liberty messed up? The monsters never make it to the east coast, right?

Kyle

You hate Roland Emmerich movies for what exact reason? You said you hate his movies for “that exact reason” about three minutes in.

Mike Jakermen

You really want to have sexual intercourse with a film. Good luck fitting in that little hole.

Mike Jakermen

This might be me. But i think there has always be a ratio of spectacle vs serious films and good vs bad. In the 50 and 60’s you had Movies like “I was a Teenage Werewolf” and “This Island Earth”. In the 70’s you had Blaxploitation Films and Revenge Fantasy Films. In the 80’s & 90’s had Big Action films. I Guess there is an argument that movies are worst than ever before. Or people just remember the good stuff while forgetting the bad. I think films have always been just as much about escaping reality as much as it is about facing it.

http://www.treerockcreations.com Tree Rock Creations

Yes, I agree. I just wish there were more entertainment choices for intelligent people because I’m finding it harder to escape from reality.

I can’t speak for the movie 12 Years a Slave, but I’m tired of the black slavery theme; it’s has been done to death, and I don’t support it. However, although Schindler’s List is a depressing drama, I still love the camera shots, acting, and calm pacing, opposed to today’s movies.

Speaking of Blow, if I did have an opportunity to talk with John Depp, I wouldn’t ask him about his work. I would ask him, “What was it like to work with director Ted Demme?” Mr. Demme used many old school styles of directing in the movie Blow that it blew me away. It was amazing to see his talent. Yet, he died not long after shooting the movie Blow. Sadly, he died from cocaine use.

Changeling

No they didn’t. The scene you are referring to was obviously cut from the movie, but despite that it was shown in previews of it.
That happen quite often believe it or not.

Kyle

Yes, I know it does. But since they never make it to the east coast, it seems exceptionally strange for that to be there at all.

sepiajack

Except the background behind the statue of liberty is NOT New York, and looks like Nevada. Do they have a replica State of Liberty in Las Vegas? I know they have an Eiffel Tower in the movie, but its not Paris.

John G

Is it too much to ask to get a Japanese Godzilla movie with that kind of budget!

Changeling

They probably show it in the previews because it’s a good scene despite being cut from the film itself, and the name of the game when it comes to previews is to draw you to go see the movie.
It’s definitely a deceitful tactic that is for sure.

Alex Lee

I agree with Mike. I would prefer “nameless scientists yelling about Godzilla.”

Alex Lee

Yes, they do. The name of that Hotel is New York New York

Alex Lee

One of those do deserve a Plinkett review.

Kyle

Good point. I forgot about that.

Veteran of the Psychic Wars

So when they show Rich Evans watching Godzilla 98, he looks like Jack Torrance going, you know, going the other way? They keep doing this shit to poor Rich Evans, and one day, he’ll axe-murder them. And who will say it was undeserved?

Also, I fucking hate Hank Azaria. Even when doing his weak Simpson voices he has this insufferable smugness to him. I hate him to the same degree that I, that we all, do love Bryan Cranston.

Veteran of the Psychic Wars

When you mentioned “older films”, I though you were going to suggest some of his good movies, like “Unbreakable” and “Unbreakable”. But Signs, The Village are pretty bad, and Lady in the Water is the official innauguration of Shyamalan as poop, just poop.

http://www.facebook.com/matt.mossman.75 Matt Mossman

I can’t endorse Mike’s take on this Godzilla. It was about as bad as it gets.

Alexander Simmons

I saw new zilla in the theatre after watching this review. The 98 godzilla is better. This new flick is about 2 hours of pain and then BARELY 10 minutes of monsters.

dirk beefhammer

I liked it when Godzilla ripped the head off that other monster, only thing that could top that would be if Mike & Jay ripped the head off Roland Emmerich.

Charon

This might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said, Nash.

Re-subscribe.

Charon

Don’t ask me to explain this, but I went to see Godzilla, and somehow, I watched Transcendence on accident. Dr. Johnny Depp makes an appearance as a nameless Japanese scientist who yells about saving the world with nano-machines that are shaped like marital aids.

WHOOPS!

Workshed

Would be interested to see what the opinion was on ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ as (if you can leave your Tom Cruise prejudices at the cinema door) it was, in my book, the best sci-fi flick for many a full moon.

Otto Torrens

Godzilla Vs. Biollante – Guys daughter gets blown up in a terrorist/corporate espionage attack at the very beginning, that is, after about a dozen people are killed for a single Godzilla piece in the opening segment.

I wouldn’t really call Terror Of Mechagodzilla dark so much as one EXTREMELY death prone girl dying a bunch.

Otto Torrens

Godzilla needs to be accompanied by the old Superman theme.

Otto Torrens

I must be one of the few people who enjoys Signs.

http://wylkus.posthaven.com/ Wylkus

I’m about to fix this movie.
Bryan Cranston is the main character, his son with whom he has become distant never leaves San Francisco. Then the bulk of the human storyline is Cranston and Watanabe being the scientists trying to stop the monsters, while Cranston worries about his son and has the arc of realizing he should have focused on his family instead of chasing monsters for 15 years.
We skip Honolulu entirely. Nothing that happens there has any effect on any point of the plot.
At the same time we have a bit of meeting his son in San Francisco, who joined the military to get away from his conspiracy theorist dad. Because we skipped Honolulu the monsters arrive in San Francisco way earlier, and we get more of him and his family trying to survive monster town. We get more time of the HALO drop mission, because soldiers trying to navigate their way through a city in the middle of a monster fight is a great, great set piece that was barely used at all.

Kevin O’Neil

Well played. I haven’t seen these movies in roughly fifteen years, so thanks for the reminders!

Kevin O’Neil

Right? We’re advertised “Death and the destroyer of worlds,” and we get “Savior of our city?”

Otto Torrens

The movie might also have been drug in a completely different direction since the script was redone like 3 times~

http://rocketboy1313.blogspot.com/ Rocketboy1313

I actually don’t mind him as an actor. But he has no traits beyond his skill set, and being Bryan Cranston’s son. They gave him nothing to work with.

Kevin O’Neil

Oh really? Funny that I got this vague impression (after seeing it) that Cranston’s parts were added in at the last minute just so they could advertise his presence and bring in the still-hot Breaking Bad audience.

But seriously. I wanted my Godzilla horror movie. MUTO appears, military is helpless, Godzilla appears and kills MUTO… fuck now how do we get rid of Godzilla? Should have been the premise…

Vinny’s TweetMachine

Even though my inital response, as well as my reply, go well beyond 4chan level. You braindamaged, cretinous slimeslur.

Otto Torrens

That movie was called Godzilla Raids Again.

http://hardycases.com/ Hale

There was also that one movie where he was possessed by the souls of soldiers who died in WWII, and went about violently murdering other monsters to get revenge on Japan.

Otto Torrens

I don’t count a haunted dinosaur as a Godzilla movie :c Cause that one really really sucked.

http://hardycases.com/ Hale

That it did.

…Poor Baragon

Homo Demons

Read today that Harrison Ford got injured by the Millennium Falcon on the set of SW VII. They should probably keep the footage in the final cut, you know for realism, sowing what happens to senior citizens trying to play action star roles..

Alex Lee

I realize it’s off-topic, but I hope that Han Solo action stuff will be sparse and typically motivated by him being the last resort. If he’s still doing stuff like he’s 25, then the movie will probably suck.

Richard Jefferies

How about a Plinkett review of Independence Day?

Richard Jefferies

Very well re-organized. I thought Honolulu was the weakest part of the movie for sure.

When I was growing up in the 90s I loved the Godzilla cartoon. I never actually saw the Godzilla movie. The same studio did Ghostbusters Xtreme, Big Guy and Rusty, and the Men in Black cartoons. I have always heard the Godzilla movie is bad. It makes sense a movie with unrealistic characters that feel like they were from a cartoon would make a better cartoon than movie, but actually from what I remember they didn’t share the same characters an d it was a lot more respectful to Godzilla.

the_antithesis

Poor Rich Evans.

galleymac

I don’t know if I’d actually recommend it — but I did love how irrelevant the human characters wound up being in this newest one. What Watanabe said was dead-up accurate — can’t control nature. Humans having to behave like the smaller, less powerful members of the animal kingdom that they are worked for me — running and hiding until the elephants are done fighting it out is no shame to the ants — and note, it’s not the ants that are on the endangered species list.

That said, every last human character was such an extreme cliche. I found myself nodding off during the first half of the film, but enthralled by the second half — the kaiju’s motives and courses of action remained unpredictable. I think, though, that if this was someone’s first giant creature/disaster film and they weren’t already inundated in the human archetypes, the whole film would be pretty cool.

bb-15

I would recommend Godzilla 2014. So, I liked it more than Jay did but was a bit less positive about it than Mike’s view.
– My problem with the movie was tone.
If this was a serious Godzilla film then some of the wacky things in the story did not fit imo. (The US storing the female MUTO in Nevada? Of the female MUTO destroying Las Vegas to an Elvis tune?)
– Agreed that Bryan Cranston should have been kept around (and Juliet Binoche too).
– But the visuals of the monsters, their destruction and the search for the monsters was top notch.

http://www.google.com/ El Robbo

It always bugs me when people think that dated FX is the “charm” of a film. No, no it’s not. I mean it can be if you’re obsessed with technique and want to remain detached from the film and laugh at how it’s made. But some of us, dare I say most of us, want to be able to believe in the events on screen. “Guy in dumb rubber costume” is NOT the fucking point or the charm of old Godzilla movies, Jay. The point and charm was looking past that and trying to believe it was real.

http://www.google.com/ El Robbo

Because he’s Roland-fucking-Emmerich. And that alone is worthy of hate.

http://www.google.com/ El Robbo

Know how I can tell you’re an idiot?

sepiajack

That paradigm has completely flipped over the last 10 years. Ever since Martin Sheen did the west wing and Kiefer Sutherland did 24, A list actors are now doing TV, because that’s where all the good writing is. Movies now are more likely to use young unknowns studios can get roped into multi picture deals and then hope on them becoming ‘the next big thing’, (example Jennifer Lawrence getting signed to 3 Xmen movies when she was still barely known)

But for credible actors over 30, there has been a huge movement away from movies towards television.

sepiajack

So I started Breaking Bad again a little over a week ago (end of June) – I’m enjoying it much more the 2nd time through. Knowing how the side characters eventually get fleshed out makes me like them a lot more in the early episodes. In retrospect all the things I complained about above are just in season 2, I have no issues with Season 1, I wouldn’t laud it as the greatest thing ever, but it is solid.

I’m starting season 2 now.

Patrick Villano

The Honolulu scene would have worked if they didn’t do that sudden switch to a kid watching it on TV for a brief glimpse. I understand they don’t want to “overshow” the monsters, but that was a bit too much, especially in light of the fact that Cranston gets killed off early and Aaron Johnson had to carry a lot of the film. He was just plain dull. Keep Cranston around as the main human-with-the-perspective, more Ken Wattanabe and Hawkins, and we would have a huge improvement.

Mitchell Taco Nash

You have to run the Voigt-Kampff Empathy Test first just in case, Deckard.

Adrian Hernandez

I’d probably use 2 words to describe the new Godzilla movie: “Just enough”.

It had the right amount of everything it needed to be:
1.) faithful to the originals,
2.) entertaining to the masses,
3.) satisfactory to a new directorial vision.

The fights didn’t become overbearing, the CGI was handled with the correct amount of “smoke and mirrors”, and the plot was just plausible enough to warrant the “gritty reboot” tone it was going for.

I also don’t see the complaints about Bryan Cranston. He acted as a plot device to lead the narrative into the monster show. Once he did, he wouldn’t have had much to do. He’s like Raymond Bur in the American version of the original.

And ‘Kick-Ass’ isn’t really the star after that, it’s the kaiju. They get the “Third Man” treatment: Every scene afterwards they’re either mentioned or an invisible part of.

You make some good points. To be fair though, ToM has an intensely bitter man selling out the human race to bring his daughter back to life, siccing his pet monster on humanity because some other scientists laughed at him, Godzilla being beaten down and literally buried by his opponents, and the daughter committing suicide to save everyone. Not exactly sunshine and lollipops.

joshua kit

Watched it last night. Unbelievably bad.

ikdks

It’s kind of like when they adapt a Tom Clancy book to the screen. Clancy books make the American military the hero, not any individual soldier or officer. So when they write the screenplay, characters become amalgams of several other characters, and those characters are always in the right place at the right time to establish all the plot points.

Or like 2012. The big complaint was how many coincidences there were to get them to the ark at the end. Well if 99% of the population of the world was wiped out, everybody left would be there because of a million coincidences. And what’s the point of telling the story of the guy that got killed by a giant metal doughnut in the first five minutes.

DeColonise

Personally I think hollywood has ruined yet another movie by naming it Godzilla, a more honest title should have been “US Army”.
Characters, while being played rather well, is so boring and typical of hollywood movies these days, sterotypical and boring female characters and the absolute biggest disgrace of all almost no Godzilla in a movie about Godzilla. I sst time and time again, ahh come on.. give us a fight.. nope… ahh but now…
nope… and finally some fighting and ten seconds later it cuts to boring pointless US Army dudes.

AWS2

I agree with this. Many nostalgic film fans often say that old movies have a “charm” about them, because they’re dated and look bad now. These same people will usually turn around and criticize new movies for looking fake. CGI just looks fake, whereas stop-motion, animatronics and men-in-suits had a “charm” about them. These people rarely seem to realize that this is a purely subjective opinion, based entirely on their own fond memories of watching those old movies as a kid. It does NOT speak, in any way, to the actual merit of the movies themselves. You put those old movies that have such “charm” in front of a fresh pair of eyes and there’s no “charm” whatsoever. Just primitive filmmaking.

AWS2

Godzilla 2014 is certainly a better film overall than Godzilla 98. But the one thing that I think Godzilla 98 did better was the design of Godzilla. Say what you want about being faithful to the original design… the original design was not made that way because it worked for the films. It was made that way so that it could be built as a man in a suit, since that was the only way to do it back then.
For all the great effects and design elements on display in Godzilla 2014… they went with the dated, original design for the monster himself. And I have to say… it looks pretty goofy. The lumbering, fat legs… the cushy caboose… It just looks goofy.

Whereas the design for the 98 Godzilla was much more realistic. It actually drew on prehistoric animal biology. I completely agree that the motivation for designing him that way was because they were riding the coat-tails of Jurassic Park. No argument there whatsoever. But regardless of the motivation for why they designed him that way, it worked! Godzilla looks like a much more realistic predator in that movie. He moves more interestingly. He feels more dangerous. His legs have power and feels like a real creature’s legs, instead of a guy moving fat rubber suit legs.

This is an example when being faithful to the original can actually be a detriment to the film. Godzilla, even though he’s realized through state-of-the-art modern CGI… looks like a goofy, old-fashioned rubber creature design. I think it would have served the film much more properly to re-design a more believable creature to fit with the more realistic tone of the film. As it is, he looks out-of-place any time you see him in full view.

AWS2

I’ve actually always thought that about those type of complaints. People criticize movies for making the main character survive no matter what… and I always answer that by saying, “Well, if they hadn’t survived, the movie would have been about someone else who did.” It’s not that they’re surviving because they’re the main character… they’re the main character because they survived.

AWS2

I know we all want to keep Cranston in it because we love him, but really… why even have him? Just make Watanabe the main character. This is a Japanese story. Why can’t we have a Japanese protagonist? Make HIM the guy who’s wife gets killed because of the monsters, and that’s what makes him so obsessed with it.

But it’s Hollywood, so we need white main characters…

DeColonise

AngryJoes review of the latest Godzilla movie is one review I totally agree with.

but they weren’t going for the Shora Era tone, they added in elements from the original 1954 movie. I’ll admit, finding a balance between the two formula’s may not have been the best way to go. They should’ve went all out on either the terrifying side or the campy side.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with changing a familiar formula. How do you think Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy worked so well?

AlcaldeEste

You know that these movies you’re describing are fictional, right?
As in, whatever they put up on the screen is the result of someone’s conscious decision to write?
However contrived and stupid that story was, it is exactly as contrived and stupid as the screen writer intended. It’s not like they’re saying: “Well, this is what actually happened to these people when the World ended in 2012! Better tell their story right!”
I mean, they didn’t put that shit in Deep Impact. Was that because they were dumb and focusing on the wrong characters that survived in a realistic way, while Roland Emmerich-levels of bullshit was happening to other characters?

Brad Benson

I don’t necessarily agree with you, but you certainly make a fair point about his body type and movement in the movies. My only gripe with the Legendary design personally are his stubby hoof like feet, and his tiny head.